Four brothers took their dad’s old Ford farm truck and secretly overhauled it for him.
Typical Father’s Day gifts include cologne, ties, and coffee mugs. Those are nice and useful presents to get for dad, but the Father’s Day gift you see here is on a completely different level. This lovingly-restored Ford truck didn’t come in a box with complimentary gift wrapping from a website. It had to be destroyed and then rebuilt just in time for one father’s big day.
The Ford F-100 in the video has been in the same family since it was brand new all the way back in 1962. After decades of use as a farm truck, it stopped running and was left to sit and decay. It spent the next 20 years stationary while time kept marching on, trampling the body and leaving rust footprints behind. The tires dry-rotted. Inside, the holes in the interior gradually filled with dirt and dust. The F-100 had been forgotten.
Luckily for it, the patriarch who used to drive it hadn’t been. His four sons yanked the truck from its above-ground crypt in the fall of 2015 and took it to one of their shops to begin restoring it to its former glory. Over the next 18 months, they “disassembled, patched, straightened, repaired, buffed, painted, and reassembled” the F-100, according to their proud father. The physical signs of driving lessons and deer hunts may have been polished out or painted over, but the memories of them with their father are what drove the men to put in all of that wrench time and elbow grease.
The end result of their labor of love is a rolling example of time well spent. The white paint is fresh and pristine. The chrome gleams. Under the hood, the engine looks more than capable of going another 50-plus years. Inside, the red and white dash is a throwback to a bygone era. You could say the entire truck is one giant homage to the past. We call it a gift the father of four loving sons will never forget for the rest of his life.
Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.
After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.
While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.
Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.
