She's beautiful, ain't she?

I had been looking for a shop truck. One that could double-duty as a truck and, with a couple of BikeNutz logos painted on the doors, represent our business as well. I wanted something unique that no one else had.

I was driving home from work one day and spotted this old truck parked next to the highway with a "for sale" sign stuck in the window. I immediately slammed on the brakes and turned around to negotiate a sale price.

I recognized the old truck from my childhood years. An old man, Carl Oswalt, drove the truck around town, hauling trash for years and years. Even up into the early nineteen-nineties it was his daily driver.

The truck was parked in front of Tucker Tree Service. Rick Tucker, owner, acquired the truck at Carl's estate sale after he died. Rick and I grew up together in the same neighborhood so I thought that might give me some leverage. The price he was asking was more than fair but at the time it was more than I had in pocket. I offered up the trade of an old shotgun to which he accepted so we hauled her home. Looking back, the terms of the sale seem somehow fitting.

If you think that it looks like it used to be a car then you have guessed correctly. It was originally a 1948 Ford Sedan until the day Carl rolled the back windows down and commenced to removing the rear half of the roof and the trunk lid. He installed a wooden framed truck bed and lined it with galvanized tin. The seams were sealed with roofing pitch and the tin was attached with an inordinate amount of sheet metal screws. The rear window was salvaged from the sedan-ectomy and installed at an odd angle; crooked! :)

Although we're unsure of the date he converted it he officially titled it as a truck in 1962. Over the years he applied numerous coats of brush painted barn red. He also had a set of wooden stock racks on the sides of the bed with a wooden tailgate. Those items are long since gone, but we intend on replacing them. We have added the sun visor, cab lights and west coast truck mirrors but it currently looks pretty much the way I traded for it.

Rat cars and trucks vary greatly in certain ways from rat bikes. Rat cars and trucks usually have some major body and frame modifications and are very Spartan in the trim department with one or more shades of primer as a paint job. However, rat bikes are usually well-worn road bikes that are decorated with trinkets and do-dads on almost every exposed surface. In approaching this project we're going to combine both schools of thought.

The old girl will undergo a major mechanical restoration and some visual treatments will be added while preserving all of her charm and character. To achieve this goal we are enlisting (commissioning) the help of several artists, sign painters and mechanics. In the end it will be a collection of work performed by several artists; a rolling piece of folk art if you will.

She will have her first public showing at the James Dean Rod Run and Festival on September 2007 at Play Acres Park in Fairmount, Indiana. We will be posting pics and stories on this page as she goes through the changes.

Stay Tuned, JB2