Since it’s been raining non-stop and I had a couple days off, I’ve kinda spent the weekend assessing what shape the truck is really in and what I ought to do about it. While I’m disappointed that the body isn’t just a little straighter, I’d be hard pressed to find another one this solid here in the rust belt. After all, I DID want a driver. It definitely looks good enough to cruise in but not so nice that I’d be afraid to drive it, so I guess it fits the bill in that regard. And yes, I’m flat disgusted that mechanically it’s looking like a gut job. But I’ve got a lift now and I’m otherwise we’ll-equipped to handle the work. The bottom line is that I wanted a ‘55 and now I’ve got one. As much as I didn’t want another project, I’m going to fix it. Momma says I have because she wants to drive it! . At least I’ve still got her support.

In all seriousness, the decision came down to mostly economics. I’ve been looking at trucks and watching prices for months. I paid what I would consider to be a slightly generous but fair price for a truck in this condition IF it were running and in reasonable mechanical condition. I gambled on that last part and lost. Knowing what I do now, I overpaid by about 50%. With what I’ve got in the truck itself and the trip to go get it, there’s no profit in selling it right now. Quite the opposite. I’d have to take a huge loss and that would push buying a replacement in better condition off by literally years. I figure that the parts and machine work to get this thing in shape are going to run about $2500 more than I had budgeted for and the truck will be worth about what I paid for it when I’m done. I’ll be upside down in it, but not by as much as I would lose if I cut my losses and unloaded it right now. And at least I’ll still have the truck and when it’s fixed i’ll know exactly what I’ve got.

I wasn’t going to post this part because it will expose what kind of a sappy dork I can be, but I haven’t told this part of the story yet and I don’t want to paint the seller of the truck as a complete con man. So here it is:

The other thing I took in to consideration is the truck. THIS truck. Some folks - even folks in this hobby - take an old vehicle like this strictly at face value. It’s just a cold, dead machine to them. Or maybe a piece of art or even a commodity. It’s nothing more than an object that they assign a monetary value to and that’s that. They don’t ever think about or appreciate where it has came from or what it has been through like some of us do. They don’t respect its history. They own it and they may even take pride in it. But they never really love it because you can’t care that much about something that you don’t respect.

The guy I bought THIS truck from was really attached to it and he was pretty emotional about seeing it on the trailer and headed out of his life. You could tell he really loved the thing just like it is and for what it is, mechanical issues excluded. He had to have known that the engine needed some work when it was parked, but I don’t think that he knew things were quite as bad as what they are and I don’t think he was intentionally deceptive about it. He wanted to fix it but I got the impression that he just wasn’t capable of doing it himself and couldn’t afford to pay somebody else. My buddy and I ended up spending the best part of the morning with the seller and his family after the truck was loaded up. Great folks! They fed us a huge homemade breakfast and told us the story of how they got the truck and what it’s been up to for the last 20 years. We got to see pictures of it through the years while they’ve had it and could see that it was almost a member of the family. Getting that kind of history and backstory and buying a truck from somebody who really loved it means something and it has value of its own that you can’t put a price on. Or at least it does to me. I guess maybe I’m weird about stuff like that. It felt more like he was giving me custody of his child than selling an old truck. So I suppose I don’t just feel like I own it now. I feel like I’m responsible for it.