Welcome. You will find a wealth of knowledge here.

I lean towards the '48. Those older ones look pretty cool and you never expect them to have a 428 in them either. Would surprise some of those kids in tuner cars if you blow their doors off!!!

 

Welcome to FTE membership.... What style do you like better? I'm a fan of the flat fenders, so that is what I have... I've installed a 425 Rocket motor into a '49 f1 (stock rear end) and it looked great in there... My '49 f1 I have now has a SB (darkside) with a 9" rear end in it and works well...

The three factors that I think that are what you need to figure out...
1) Dollors? to spend to buy and make it road worthy
2) How much time you have to make it road worthy
3) How far away are you willing to look for what you want

For me I have otal of about 6k into my '49 f1, bought it with a 350/350 already installed, but had to rebuild engine went thru the trans. Bought missing parts. Still need to do interior, replace glass, body work and paint.

 

On the 'woman thing' I agree with letting her decide. You already like both so you win either way!

 

Go with the F1 since it is clearly the best looking truck Ford ever made. (flame on) The fridge body will be more civilized, however. On the early trucks, parts availability will be better with the F1 over a 3/4 ton, especially in the area of body parts. You can't go wrong either way if you let your wife choose. Now, two wife stories. I got my wife interested in autocrossing years ago when I first started. She became pretty good at it so I had her support when I needed parts. New tires? Honey, these are a couple seconds faster than the old ones...OK. Gave her a camshaft for Christmas and she asked what the heck this was. I answered "horsepower", and she knew Santa loved her. My friend would always take a new date to the racetrack or autocrossing on the first date. If she liked it she got a second date. He brought a gal to an open track day, I watched her loop the car in a very fast corner, and she got right back on the track and kept going. They're married over 20 years now and she's a great tig welder. Get her involved.

 

Well finding one "isnt" a big deal. The one benefit of working for the airlines is the flight benefits of going and looking at the trucks before buying. The most difficult/expensive part would be the shipping/trailering of the truck.

I would stick with a F-1 or F-2 to be a stock~ish street machine, use the fridge for a workhorse...personally.

So call me retarded or young but what do you mean by using the fridge as a workhorse?
Well currently I dont worry about alot of the tuner cars in my neck of the woods since alot of them are my buddies ( I know you can skoff if you want to but it is the younger generation kind of thing to own rice burning cars) and for most of them I have built them up to what they want/can afford. So if you guys have turbo questions dont hesitate to ask, I can walk you through how to set up a full standalone fuel management system and tune everything in from your flip up CD deck.

Now when it comes to the woman thing, it is hard to let her decide because she said and I quote "well you are selling your new truck to get some old truck, I dont know why other than to help out with the wedding and finally get your old truck, but the decision is completely up to you because i would choose the wrong one." So I guess I can give you a little background, I am selling my 06 Ram 1500 (I know say all you want about Dodge) but that is all I could afford at the time, and now I want to sell it, hopefully make a some money on it to then buy the truck that I want and even have some money towards the wedding. Well I appreciate the answers so far, please keep em coming.

 

I say go for the 48 f3 but only because my old friend has one for sale in california and we are trying to feed him lol.

 

They mean keep the 48 for a hot rod and use the 59 as an everyday errand running vehicle.

There are several names for the different body styles. If I remember correctly the 57 to 59 is called a fridge because it's boxy like an old refrigerator. The 48 and 49 is called a monkey face. 50 to 52 are the flat fenders. 53 to 56 are the fat fenders. 60 and later are called the slicks.

I could be wrong. If I am, I'm sure someone will correct me. Now that He/She who shall not be named is gone they will probably correct me in a kindly manner.

 

are the 53-56 fenders fatter than the 48-52??

 

Do these fenders make my butt look fat?

 

^^^^most beautiful thing ever! (in the world of classic trucks)

 

Well, I see no reason to call ya a waif.

 

Now that's a big butt I could get into.... But I still like my '49 f1

 

48-50 are monkey faces and 51-52 are manure spreaders...

 

I like big butts and I cannot lie...

 

As for the 428 into the 48, others have put 390's in them so it would be no different. But yes it is a tight fit. They both look good so you can't lose. Congrats on still having your first car, wish I still had my 62 Nova (yes I am a Ford man, but it was given to me).

Paul