What did John Cullum Drive in The Dark Tower?
There are so many reasons to love Stephen King’s The Dark Tower!
In this series of articles, I’m exploring the many vehicles found over the course of Sai King’s 7 books.
This article is the second in the series.
John Cullum’s Vehicles
What did John Cullum drive in Song of Susannah?
1. John Cullum’s Ford Galaxie
Ayuh, John Cullum owned two cars. Including an old dusty Ford Galaxie. ‘Twas the very same car in which Roland and Eddie experienced a sudden weightlessness and were able to communicate one final time with the Pere before his tragic, tear-wrenching hero’s death:
Roland and Pere in the Dixie Pig
Roland and Eddie were in the Galaxie when they rode the beam wave into the Dixie Pig:
“As Oy charged at the bugs, Roland of Gilead did the only thing he could think of: he swam down to Callahan. Into Callahan.”
Soon after, The Pere died, leaving Eddie and Roland with haunting last words:
“God, I think the Pere is going.
May you find your Tower, Roland, and breach it —“—and may you climb to the top,” Eddie breathed.”
When Eddie and Roland came back to the keystone world, they re-entered Cullums car:
“Then gravity reasserted itself and they fell, with meaningless objects raining down all around them. The floormat which had been floating around in the Ford’s cabin landed draped over the steering wheel. Eddie’s midsection hit the top of the front seat and air exploded out of him in a rough whoosh.”
Being that Cullum met with Roland and Eddie in 1977, his car probably looked something like this:
The Ford Galaxie (not to be confused with the Ford Galaxy) was a run of cars made between 1959 and 1974. According to Wikipedia, Ford came up with the name, Galaxie, to take advantage of the public excitement over the international space race.
Fun fact, mayhap ye remember, and mayhap ye don’t, but the Galaxie had an eight track player: “Don’t waste your time, John, he [Eddie] thought. No true thread there, that’s a dead-end gadget if there ever was one.”
-The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah, Chapter III: Eddie Makes a Call
If it does ya, I found a super nerdy list of movies that the Ford Galaxie has been in. Among the cooler titles were Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Among the films I didn’t care about were everything else on the list. But mayhap thee is more of a film junkie than me.
I may look cute, but I’m a Mean Ole Bear!
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2. John Cullum’s Ford F-150
What did John Cullum’s pickup truck look like? Funny how I never quite knew how to picture Cullum’s pickup truck clearly. At the time, he fact that all of Cullum’s stuff is old was obviously enough for my dull imagination. However, I’ve since done some research!
After mulling lists of all the pre-1977 Ford F series (the first Ford F series dates back to 1948), I realized I had a lot of room to let my imagination choose.
This Wikipedia article has pictures from different generations of F-150 series. If you’re interested, mayhap have a look yourself. Thee can come to thees own conclusions.
As for me, I did come to my own conclusion. When you consider that John Cullum liked old stuff, that basically means the truck was pre-1970, right? Plus, he’s a handy person who fixes his own stuff. So I say John Cullum’s truck goes back to the 1950s.
