THE TRUCKS THAT KEEP ON GIVING
When I was 16 I was lucky enough to be packed off as an exchange student to Raleigh, North Carolina, where I spent a year going to high school and living with an American family. It was probably the best year of my life – well, being 16 or 17 how could it not be?! However, one thing that struck me was the family (the Olasons) had an old blue Ford F100 pick-up (I’d hazard a ’70 or ’71) that was almost like family. It was christened Ol’ Blue and sat out in the back yard all year round, oozing a bit of oil here and there, but starting on the button day in, day out. Ol’ Blue was 17 years old, which in the Eighties was prehistoric and probably would have been put out to pasture had it not been so reliable and useful.
Today, I see trucks like Ol’ Blue being imported into the UK in far worse condition, now being half a century old, but selling for thousands of pounds… who knew?! Ol’
Blue eventually succumbed to the crusher over something trivial like a steering rack or blown head gasket and was unceremoniously replaced with a, gulp, Honda Civic! Had I known then what I know now, I would have rescued it and sold it on for a tidy profit. Many readers of this publication know what fine vehicles these old trucks make: rudimentary, basic… agricultural even, but that’s part of their charm.
But they’re tough and ultimately eminently practical for everything from journeys to the tip to towing and camping trips… try that in your Renault Zoe!
But I digress, these old trucks are even being snapped up by ‘bespoke’ restorers and turned into far superior vehicles than ever rolled off the line back in the day – the 1970 ICON Ford F100 on page 69 is a great example. Will we ever run out of classic American metal to restore? Well, judging by one man’s discovery (check out our muscle cars barn find feature) most likely not, and while those muscle cars, even in their… errr, ‘patina’d’ state are beyond the pockets of most collector/ restorers, it looks like there’ll always be a ready supply of rusty, crusty and bad-to-the-bone trucks for us to get our hands on!