Maine Teen Turns Model A Truck from Rusting Hulk to Restored Runner
Determined 19-year old rebuilt classic Ford truck himself after taking auto tech, collision repair, and welding classes.
When most of us look back on our teenage years, “good decisions” aren’t a thing that generally come to mind. But that isn’t the case for this Oxford, Maine, 19-year-old. Garrett Haslett bought a 1929 Ford Model A truck from one of his school teachers in 2014. Today, this classic Ford is running like a pro thanks to an impressive restoration that the young Ford truck enthusiast did himself.
Reported by NBC News Center Maine, Haslett found the truck sitting outside one of his teachers’ houses. A brief glimpse of a photo showing the truck in the woods shows how far it came. In the snapshot, it’s little more than a hood and firewall on a rusty frame jutting out of the ground. And it wasn’t even original. “They call it a doodlebug, but it’s essentially a homemade tractor,” he says. “Somebody had taken a Model A dump truck and cut the frame out of it and shortened it and made it into a tractor.”
Naturally, a then-15-year-old wouldn’t know much about restoring a nearly 90-year-old truck. So, Haslett took an auto tech class and a collision repair class at his high school. After he graduated, he took a welding class. This knowledge proved to be invaluable when it came to restoring the truck.
‘I remember driving it around the lawn and it was magical. [It’s] something that I had put together and now it’s finally working. It was quite cool.’
After years of working on the truck, he’s finally gotten it up and running. Today, it’s an impressive and almost original-looking driver. “I remember driving it around the lawn and it was magical,” Haslett says about his first drive. “[It’s] something that I had put together and now it’s finally working. It was quite cool.”
Since then, he’s had the truck on the road all summer, and he’s even had it up to 55 miles per hour. Lubing the suspension, he marvels that “pieces last longer” on these old workhorses. He’s right, and he’ll learn that first hand. He plans on keeping the truck for years to come and continuing to tinker. After watching this news clip, we’re left wondering why we didn’t buy a classic at 15 years old. What a story.
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