Ol’ Yeller

Ol’ Yeller is a rare breed, it’s a 1969 Ford F100 factory quad cab. Ol’ Yeller was built by my dad, John. He began the build in 1996. It took him about three years to complete, working on it on his days off. It was a 100% backyard build with Dad ordering from LMC to fill the gaps he couldn’t at the local pick-a-part. Ol’ Yeller was completed in 1999. It was built as a diamond plate flatbed with oak stake sides, painted canary yellow. All of my dad’s builds are completed with chrome baby moon wheels.

When my dad had a stroke in 2008, he decided he needed more function and less form. Ol’ Yeller got a makeover and became a short bed. Ol’ Yeller rolled around in life with a yellow cab and primer gray bed until 2017. Dad decided he needed some creature comforts like power windows and air conditioning, after all, we do live in the desert.

My husband and I bought Ol’ Yeller from dad. Now, my husband’s vision was more hot rod. The LMC catalogs were marked up with yellow highlighter. One of the most important things for my husband was to get the stance just right. With an order to LMC and a lot of hard work by my husband, Rick, and his brother, Gary, they got it just right. Over the past two years, the two of them have continued to put numerous hours, a lot of elbow grease, and multiple order to LMC into making Ol’ Yeller mechanically sound and aesthetically appealing as well as functional for five passengers.

Ol’ Yeller never had a true back seat. Dad had put a fishing boat seat in the center back for my daughter when she was little, but that was as close as he ever came. In January of this year, after searching high and low for a bench seat, Dad found a ’91 Bronco bench seat from one of his friends that we were able to make work. Ol’ Yeller finally got his seat. Ol’ Yeller went in for body and paint in May. Eight weeks later, Ol’ Yeller returned home as a beautiful red, short bed quad cab. It will always be Dad’s Ol’ Yeller.