Powerfully Appealing but Oh, That Plastic

2008 Dodge Dakota Laramie Crew Cab 4x4 pickup

Mary Anne is a little woman, barely five feet tall. She is mild of manner, until angered. When that happens, hell hath no fury like hers, and heaven no refuge. The best thing to do is to evacuate until the storm blows over.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

She loves trucks, which seems odd considering her physical stature. But she was reared in an East Texas family of truck-loving men whose women were similarly affected, which is why she goes nuts over pickups such as the Dodge Dakota Laramie Crew Cab 4x4 pickup we drove for a week.

"We got a really nice truck," she said over the phone, reaching me in an airport on my way home from a trip abroad.

That was ominous.

You've got to understand how Mary Anne, my wife, uses "we" in reference to test vehicles. It means "we three," as in Mary Anne, me and my Washington Post associate in vehicle evaluations, Ria Manglapus.

That could mean problems. Both women are car nuts. Both love to drive. But Mary Anne is more of a truck nut than she is a car nut and, luckily, Ria figured that out.

"Mary Anne's in the Dakota," Ria said, reaching me in the same airport in a separate phone call. "Is that okay with you?"

Heck, yes. That was just fine. Being a road warrior is one thing. But returning home to a battle zone is another. I wanted peace. But I got an argument anyway.

I did not share Mary Anne's unbridled enthusiasm for the Dakota Laramie. Here was the problem:

With its 4.7-liter, 302-horsepower V-8 engine, the Laramie is the most powerful mid-size pickup truck available in the U.S. market. I liked that. Mary Anne, a recycling environmentalist who is a closet horsepower freak, liked it too. I also liked that the Dakota Laramie's engine was a flexible-fuel model capable of running on 85 percent ethanol, although we could not find any of the stuff in our North Arlington neighborhood.

But I loathed the Dakota Laramie's cheap, more-plastic-than-thou interior. I did not think it belonged in a vehicle priced north of $30,000, as was the case with the subject vehicle.

"It's a pickup truck!" Mary Anne said in voice that carried another message. ("Duh, stupid, it's a pickup truck. People use pickup trucks to pick things up. The trucks get dirty, sometimes dirty and greasy. You want a fancy interior in something like that? Get real!") Maybe I am stupid. But I would have liked the Dakota Laramie better had it been priced under $30,000. Then it would have struck me as great deal, even with its toy-plastic interior.