DUNCAN STILL HITS ROAD DAILY
Rick Gautreau of Dartmouth is a man of his word. Shortly after buying his 1975 Ford F-100 Super Cab Ranger, he made a deal with the truck.
“It might sound a bit mystical,” the Nova Scotia musician says, “but one day while driving Duncan, I whispered, ‘If you don’t leave me stranded anywhere, I’ll never sell you or trade you in.’”
Duncan is a two-tone blue Ford truck Gautreau bought new on Nov. 6, 1974 from Harbour Motors. Early on, Gautreau’s girlfriend, now his wife, nicknamed the truck Duncan. Gautreau has owned and driven the vehicle ever since. With close to 470,000 miles (more than 750,000 kilometres) on the odometer, Duncan the truck has never left Gautreau standing at the side of the road.
Gautreau was 22 when he bought Duncan, but the truck wasn’t his first. In 1973, Gautreau’s father gave him a 1966 Ford half-ton. That truck was rusted out but Gautreau managed to keep it going for a year. The vehicle taught him a valuable lesson.
“It was only eight years old,” he says of his first truck. “And, it was a wreck. I thought, if you took care of something, you could likely keep it a couple of years longer.”
Gautreau’s relationship with Duncan began when he was driving by Harbour Motors, a dealership that was near his parents’ house. The truck was displayed on a roadside ramp, and what caught his eye was the extended cab — and its back seat.
“I was starting out as a musician, and if you owned the transportation to get to the gigs, you’d never get kicked out of the band,” Gautreau says with a laugh.
After driving by the truck for a few days, Gautreau stopped and spoke to a salesman. For $6,500, including the cost of a box cap, the Ford could be his.
He planned to finance the purchase, and his dad co-signed for the bank loan. For $232 a month, Gautreau made the payments while working construction jobs until the spring of 1975. That’s when his band, Takalo, began touring extensively. Gautreau drove with two passengers up front on the bench seat and another in the back seat with the guitars. The rest of the band’s gear was in the back, stowed in the box under the cap.
Between 1975 and ’77, they drove to gigs in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and P.E.I. The farthest the band toured in Duncan was to Toronto.
After Takalo, Gautreau toured for a number of years as a oneman band.
“Fully loaded and driving the speed limit,” he says, “the truck would get 15 miles to the gallon.”
Duncan is equipped with a 360-cubic-inch V8 engine and automatic transmission. Routine maintenance, such as oil changes every 5,000 kilometres, has kept the truck on the road. Gautreau also applied undercoating to help prevent the spread of rust.
That’s not to say Duncan hasn’t had some major overhauls. The truck was given new paint in 1979, then some touch-ups in the 1990s. In 2004, Duncan was completely disassembled. The floor of the cab was treated to new metal, and the box rebuilt with some fresh panels. A coat of paint finished the work. The engine has never been completely overhauled, but anything it needs — such as water pumps, plugs and points — it gets.
While the truck’s touring days are finished, it continues to see daily use. Gautreau and his wife own two antique homes in Dartmouth. In keeping them maintained, Gautreau will haul cinder blocks or sheets of plywood or wallboard in Duncan’s box.
“Duncan is a work truck, and I don’t baby him in the least,” he says. “He’s got all kinds of spots and blemishes, and I wouldn’t put him in a car show.
“But the engine works every day, and it starts whether it’s -20 C or 32 C.”
And, yes, Duncan is the only vehicle since 1974 the Gautreaus have owned. Their daughter, who turns 28 this year, came home from the hospital in the truck.
“He’s like a member of the family,” Gautreau says of his Ford.
While Gautreau says he originally planned to see if he could keep Duncan in good shape for 10 years — two years longer than his first truck lasted — his plans changed.
“He never let me down, and I’ve never bought another vehicle,” Gautreau says.