I was watching the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction recently on the boob-tube...and like a lot of old goats my age...saw a lot of old cars that we use to own. Ahhh...the good old days. One vehicle in particular that I remember well was an old '48 Ford F-3.
All of us Cash boys had worked at one time or the other at Bill's 66 gas station on the corner. I'm pretty sure this is where that old Ford came from. Originally my oldest brother Cole had picked it up from Bill for the lofty sum of 50 or 60 bucks...and it was a tired mess. Cole wasn't as mechananically inclined as Holden and I and this old Ford was just one a long line of gasoline-burning beasts we two younger brothers came to own simply because Cole couldn't keep them running.
This was an old farm truck and ran pretty good. Its lack of a floorboard or windows was a mere detail to us kids. But when it got hot it was prone to blow steam out of the radiator and vapor lock...leaving you stuck on the side of the road needing to fill the radiator. I'm guessing it had a cracked block or a blown head gasket. Those kind of repairs were beyond the pliers and 'lectric tape we had at our disposal....so we just kept water in the radiator and enjoyed the hell out of that old hunk.
We had a favorite fishing hole close to the house, the old "sand pit". Dug out and abandoned by the local concrete company, this old ten acre pond was our retreat. Even though we shared our fishing hole with numerous other local kids and an occasional old black man with a station wagon...we owned it. It was ours.
One summer evening Holden and I had wound up at the sand pit with a few of our buddies for some evening fishing. Sometimes it was tame and innocent. Sometimes (if Nadine, Holden's old girl friend, was the night cashier at the AP) we might wind up with a quart or two of beer and things could get rowdy. We were rowdy this particular evening. We had even made the rounds by the back of a local trucking company and had a pickup load of old pallets for the evening's bonfire. We were set.
We parked that old Ford high on a bank because sometimes the ground by the pit could get 'soupy' from rain. It was well into the evening with the bonfire roaring when disaster struck. Somehow the old Ford popped out of gear and rolled right over a six or seven foot bank and nosed straight into the sand pit. I remember someone hollering...but it was too late. The old Ford hit the water and then slowly sank until only about half a foot of the top of the cab was above water. A couple of us, in a beer-induced buzz, waded and jumped out on the truck's top and did our best 'king of the hill' noise. There was nothing we could do...we walked home that night.
As time passed I remember one could see the top of the truck from time to time as the water in the pond rose and fell with the weather. And then one particularly rainy spell that fall, it was gone completely.
I recently watched a shiny stock green, completely "nut-and-bolt-right-down-to-the-ground" restored 1948 Ford F-1 roll across the televised Barrett-Jackson auction block and it went for over $20K. That's a lot of money. But the one in my memory is worth a helluva lot more than that...and it will always be mine. B-)
They probably retrieved out of the sand pit and spent $30,000 restoring it. 😉
That made me think of a conversation just yesterday with the Fire Chief of our little township volunteer fire department. We are in process of purchasing a "brand new" 2001 truck to be converted into a useful tanker truck for use everywhere, which includes some fairly rough pasture ground. This will be a wonderful step up. The vehicle in current use sporting the aluminum 500-gallon water supply tank is a 1953 GMC. Fellow geezers are familiar with the foot starter pedal that was common in that era.
Any idea as to what a bright yellow 1953 GMC pickup without a bed might bring today? We will have no need for it once the tank and certain other gear is moved over to the "new" truck. Has only been driven to church weekly by a little old lady. ;-);-);-)
Old trucks are fun, everything is manual right down to the choke. It's really fun to explain to a 20 something engineer what a choke is in the old dump truck.
We still have my grandpa's 49 Ford that he bought brand new. It's sitting in the barn where it's been since the mid 70's.
Beer Legs, post: 365391, member: 33 wrote: We still have my grandpa's 49 Ford that he bought brand new. It's sitting in the barn where it's been since the mid 70's.
There are at least a dozen cable tv productions companies that could turn a find like that into a drama filled hour long special...
paden cash, post: 365417, member: 20 wrote: There are at least a dozen cable tv productions companies that could turn a find like that into a drama filled hour long special...
I think you are short changing them.... I'm thinking more like at least 1.5 hours, perhaps 2............
Holy Cow, post: 365364, member: 50 wrote: ...Any idea as to what a bright yellow 1953 GMC pickup without a bed might bring today? We will have no need for it once the tank and certain other gear is moved over to the "new" truck. Has only been driven to church weekly by a little old lady. ;-);-);-)
I'm assuming it's a half-ton (3100) chassis?
If it has glass, the running gear is pretty much original and the gauges work, you could probably squeeze 2 to 4K at the right market. If it were a factory 4x4, you could double that. I'll give you $1500 cash if it runs and I could drive it back to Norman, OK.
I will double check a few details when I get the chance.
My grandfather, then my father and then me, had a 1948 Ford pickup also. It started life as 3/4 ton until my grandfather added "helper" springs on the rear axle. That old truck would (and did often) haul a ton of fertilizer. It had a flat head V8 and 3 speed on the floor with a shifter that must have been 3 feet long. Flat out, wide open, down hill it would go 45 miles per hour. But it would pull anything. Before I was born my grandfather drove it from south Georgia to San Antonio, Texas to retrieve my sister to live with our grandparents (my father was in the Air Force and she would live better on the farm). I can't imagine driving close to 1,000 miles, no Interstate, no radio, no air conditioning and a top speed of 45.
Andy
paden cash, post: 365417, member: 20 wrote: There are at least a dozen cable tv productions companies that could turn a find like that into a drama filled hour long special...
Oh I'm sure there is....but it's not for sale....
It's a V8 flathead 3/4 ton, manual 4 speed. (I think. Been told. I have never driven it...) Don't think they offered the 4X4 option until the early mid 60's...
Beer Legs, post: 365452, member: 33 wrote: ..Don't think they offered the 4X4 option until the early mid 60's...
Keep track of your family treasures!
Actually Ford offered its first "Ford" built 4WD pickup to the public in 1959. GMC was a few years earlier (1956), but didn't utilize GMC manufactured running gear until 1960. Most of the big auto-makers actually offered 4WD utility vehicles to the specialty market (military and forestry service to name a few) starting in the '30s. But almost all of those were farmed out for the modifications to a few distinct manufacturers, Marmon-Harrington and Northwestern Auto Parts Company (NAPCO) being two of the most prominent.
We actually have another spare V8 Flathead engine in good "rebuildable" condition. Back in the day, we had a Bell Saw sawmill, which was powered by another stationary Flathead. It went to hell eventually sometime back in the early 70's and pops being the farmer/inventor/welder/fabricator that he was reconfigured the gearing and fabricated a whole bunch of gizzmos so he could operate it using the PTO of the Oliver 88. We used that up into the mid 90's.
Sold the Bell Saw about 15 years ago. Still have the 88.
