In 1976, my dad bought this 1966 Ford Pickup. I was 10, and this truck quickly became my favorite ride. It had a camper shell with a carpeted bed and a small love seat that I and my siblings sat in on trips to town, or to the lake, or a ball game on a warm summer evening. We passed many miles on two-lane roads in southern Missouri, riding in the back enjoying the breeze.
When I was 12, I got my first driving lesson in the old black Ford. The truck has a NP-435 four-speed with a granny gear, so it was a very forgiving teacher. As time went on and our family grew, we bought a van for traveling, and the old black Ford became a work truck on the farm. I spent many hours feeding cattle, hauling wood, and pulling trailers with that old truck. Somewhere along the line, dad drove over some rough ground, and scraped most of the exhaust away. I remember fixing it with leftover conduit, baling wire, and a chain. We routed the exhaust so it came out right under the back bumper, and the conduit exhaust was LOUD!
My dad, brothers, and I mowed lawns in the summer, and we used the truck to move mowers from place to place. We always kept two five-gallon cans of gasoline in the back. I wasn’t old enough to drive legally, so when it was time to quit for the day, dad would bring the truck to town, pick up whomever was working, and take us home. Dad had a little bit of a lead foot, so he often punched the throttle on his way out of town. When he let off, the home made exhaust would let out a ringing chorus of backfires. One day, leaving town, dad punched the pedal and, unbeknownst to us, a gas can overturned and ruptured. When dad let off the throttle, a backfire ignited the spilled gasoline and the camper shell and bed became a raging inferno. Dad drove down main street at 70 miles an hour, straight to the fire station (he was a volunteer fireman) where he grabbed a hose and extinguished the flames. That incident melted the plastic windows, but we kept the camper shell in place, paint bubbled and windows sagging.
The next year, when I was 16, I had a hay crew. We had two big trucks and when we were going to be working for the same farmer for a few days, parked the big trucks at the farm and I drove the Ford back and forth to the field. Two boys rode up front with me, and two more rode in the back under the ruined camper shell, with tool boxes, spare tires, and water jugs. Every time we went out, my friends encouraged me to ‘see just how fast this old truck will go.’ One day, I relented.
I expect we were going somewhere north of 100 miles an hour when the right rear tire blew. The Ford rolled over on the dead tire, fishtailing like mad, and I worked the steering wheel frantically. In my mind, a drumbeat: “I just killed us-I just killed us-I just killed us.” By some miracle I managed to keep the truck between the ditches and we rolled into the nearest driveway. I don’t know who was more frightened: my friends, me, or my dad.
That made two near misses. Two times when this truck might very well have been destroyed. Two times when a little bit of skill, and a whole lot of luck, kept this truck in one piece. But the old Ford couldn’t outrun time, and in 1985 something under the hood broke. Dad parked the truck, and bought a used four-wheel drive.
For 30 years, our old Ford sat in the weeds. Trees grew up around it. Generations of mice lived and died inside, nesting in the seat, the glove compartment, and what remained of the headliner. For 30 years leaves fell in the bed, and rainwater trickled into the cab through a partially open driver’s window. The truck sat so long, that it began to sink into the soil.
In 2015, I sought out Ron Wiederholt, the Director of the Automotive Refinishing Program at the Northwest Technical School in Maryville, Missouri. I had heard from a co-worker that the Program tried to do one restoration every year. I had an idea. I thought we might try to resurrect the old black Ford. I went to the old home place and took as many photos of the truck as I could. I showed them to Ron, and his eyes lit up at the challenge. That June, my son, brother, and I used a dozer to push over the trees and pulled the truck out of the brush. My son and I spent days clearing out dozens of mice nests, mud dauber brood nests, and shoveling 30 years of accumulated leaves out of the bed. We cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned.
We sent the engine to Marty’s Auto and Machine in Aurora, Missouri. The seat, door panels, and visors went to Jim Wheeler in Ridgeway, Missouri. Ron and his students at Northwest Tech did all the paint and body work, stripping the truck to bare metal and starting new. My son and I rebuilt the driveline, brakes, and ran all the wiring. Ron and I installed the interior. Through it all, LMC Truck was a constant. What we couldn’t repair or refinish, we found at LMC Truck.
On March 2, 2016, I took this truck out for a drive, the first time in almost 31 years that she’d seen the highway. The memories came flooding back, and for a moment I was 16 again. I have the truck stored in my garage for now. But in June, on my dad’s 80th birthday, I plan to take the truck back down to our family farm and watch as he and mom go for a ride.