Man, this truck has some memories! My dad ran an upholstery shop which helped finance our farm, and this was the truck that made all the pickups and deliveries...in addition, of course, to all the normal farm-type hauling. He bought it in '77 and had it until just last summer, when he finally traded it off for a newer Ford pickup.
I learned to drive a stick-shift in this truck out on the farm. I'd drive it around the fields and think that I was king of the world. It was about as basic a truck as you could get, with a 360 and 4-spd and an AM radio, but no power steering or brakes. I was driving this truck the very first time I ever drank beer (yeah yeah, I know....but the times were different then).
Years later when I was into demolition derbies I had a buddy who was going to run a late-60s Galaxie with a 390 in it. I talked him into trading engines with me...my dad's 360 for the 390, and my dad and I spend a day of thrashing to swap both engines and get both running by the end of the day. He always told me that swapping in that 390 was the best thing he ever did to that truck.
I think the odometer rolled over several times in that old truck, but it was still in darned good shape. We kept it clean and it had virtually no rust. (To keep the cab corners from rusting out, he poured a little motor oil down into them from the inside of the cab, and when he traded it off there was no rust in those areas at all.) It was just within the past few years that he finally got rid of the split-rims and went with white wagon-wheel spokes, because it was getting difficult to find someone to work on them.
Anyway, it was most definitely because of this truck that I picked up the project I'm working on now. I always loved the good looks and simplicity of it and decided that this is what I wanted for a daily driver.
Ah, the memories...
