“I want an old beat-up farm truck,” my wife said wistfully on more than one occasion. She had specific requirements. Nothing completely restored and shiny. A four-on-the-floor stick shift. I started looking last summer. Once I did a u-turn to snap a cell phone photo of a 1968 Ford partially restored and nearly flawless. It was deemed too expensive. And too shiny.
Then I found a 1961 International Harvester on a side street. It definitely fit the “beat-up farm truck” requirement. We began to get excited, though the price was more than we planned to pay. We called a buddy who has restored many vehicles to come look.
Our friend is an encyclopedia of knowledge concerning vintage vehicles. I, on the other hand, am a blank book. I retired from changing the oil in my vehicles in 1980, after draining the transmission instead of the oil pan from a 1978 Toyota Corolla while a poor graduate student in Austin. The transmission fell out in Taylor as we headed to Longview for a visit. I wondered why the dipstick seemed to be overflowing as I added four quarts to an already full pan. That is when I swore off having anything to do with automotive repair.
Our free expert was not enthusiastic about the Harvester and started looking online. By the next night he had emailed a link to a 1965 Ford F-100 in Iowa for sale on eBay. The seller included a video of the truck tooling down the road, with Steve Earle singing “You’re the Best Lover That I Ever Had.”
The truck is bright red. The interior is nearly perfect. We were hooked, and I began bidding. My BMC and I would go in 50-50 on the truck.
We have a history of going halves. Not long after we started dating more than seven years ago, we bought a Mini Cooper convertible together, also red. We shared that car for five years before deciding it was too expensive to maintain. A fellow from New York City bought it on eBay and had it shipped to him.
We won the bid for the truck for less than expected and were ecstatic. I arranged for shipping and it arrived a few weeks later.
Turns out the truck needed an engine overhaul, and the old-fashioned drum brakes were sketchy and needed to be upgraded to disc brakes. Our friend recommended a local fellow with a sterling reputation. As always, this cost more than expected since it needed a clutch as well. But the engine and all the fixin’s are spotless, restored to its black-and-gold original appearance. And with a 352 V-8, 208 horsepower engine, it has a ton of power and purrs like a giant kitten.
Here is what we discovered. My wife is tiny but tough and has been driving a stick since she was a kid. But she has a hard time driving this truck, which has no power steering. In fact, I have a hard time negotiating sharp turns. Further, there is no air-conditioning, so besides wrestling a giant steering wheel, running through the granny gears and a springy clutch, sweat pours off this time of year.
So this beast doesn’t fit us, lovely as she looks in the driveway. I am partial to power steering and air-conditioning. My wife is hesitant to drive it because it takes so much muscle to maneuver. And she likes air-conditioning as well.
When the weather cools a bit, Big Red is going up on the auction block. I am confident somebody will buy her, fulfilling a dream of owning an old truck with a perfectly restored engine. After that, we’ll keep looking for that perfect beat-up truck — just one with AC and power steering.
