From what I can tell most of the 1st Gen trucks were Hechoed In Messyco. Mine was. There are issues with the trucks no doubt. From the crappy paint jobs, the marginal quality of the cowl that is prone to cracking, the steering box mounting location, fusible links, clock spring, etc. But overall, I have to say that my 1st Gen is by far the toughest truck I've ever owned. It's spartan compared to the creature comforts that come in trucks today, but those things are not at all necessary for the truck to do what it was built to do...work hard. My 180k mile truck can still get 20+ MPG and can still haul a trailer up and down the road with any other new 50k mile truck. But the main difference is, when something breaks on my truck I can fix it myself with simple hand tools and not a friggin computer, and the parts are not priced like they are gold plated. I am more than willing to overlook a few minor issues to get a tough as nails, uber reliable tow rig. Hell I've often wished someone would locate the tooling for the trucks and start building new versions of these old workhorses.