8 Trucks Santa Sometimes Uses Instead of a Sled
Traditionally Santa Claus used a sled and 8 or 9 reindeer to deliver presents, but do a little digging and you'll find he sometimes can be found in a truck too. Here's a sampling of the Fords he's been spotted in over the years.
1. Santa's Model A Truck
Santa appears to be trying to deliver an early Hemi motor to someone with his Ford model A pickup truck. It is hard to tell if he is looking at his map for directions or trying to figure out which box the air cleaner is in to cover the carb from the snow. Plenty of these trucks were used back when they were new, with chains on the back and sometimes skis on the front for seriously bad weather. Having an enclosed, weather-tight cabin and the option of a heater made them much better than a horse for winter travel.
2. North Pole Mail Model T Snowmobile
The famous North Pole Mail truck, seen in "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", is one of the most important Ford trucks ever, because without it Santa would never get all those letters from children. Back when you watched that stop-motion classic from the 1960s, you may have thought the dual rear wheel/treads and front skis were just a fantasy. Do an image search and you'll find the USPS actually owned many of these back then, and even today, there are still plenty of these surviving winter weather travel kits out there owned by antique Ford enthusiasts. Except for the open cab area, these seem like an awesome idea for deep snow use.
3. Santa's Step Van
Not sure if the post office is helping Santa deliver presents, or if Santa is riding along to help collect letters from kids. I'm also not sure if that is a Ford stepvan, or one of the other brands (International? Metro?) because they all looks very similar. I love old pictures like this, though.
4. 1939 Ford Flatbed
If you ask for something really big from Santa, like a hot tub, or a lift for your garage, he may have to enlist the help of someone with a flatbed. This restored farm truck is perfect for all sorts of bulky deliveries, as long as Santa isn't in too much of a hurry. Santa must be used to the low temperatures, however, the guy driving looks cold.
5. 1946 Ford Wrecker
When Santa's sleigh breaks down, or one of his deer gets a flat foot, he calls in these guys who live right next door in Canada. The flathead V8 in their 1946 wrecker has plenty of torque to pull the jolly fat man out of trouble, no matter how big a load of toys he is carrying.
6. Santa's Mud Fun Bronco
With global warming melting the permafrost up north, Santa has taken up playing in the mud in the summer for fun. This big, beat up, old Bronco, with 5.8-liter power, and massive tires are just the thing when the going gets tough. It may not look like much, but it goes great, and once it is covered with mud it looks awesome!
7. Santa's F350 Super Duty
Sometimes Santa just likes to stretch out on comfortable leather seats, listen to his tunes, and still get all those presents to their destination. For that, he trusts an F350 Super Duty, which practically drives itself. The bed and the payload can handle not just the toys, but a trailer with the sled and reindeer on it if need be. That all original sled with numbers matching reindeer is too old and valuable to keep piling on the miles anyway, so it's kind of a trailer queen. Santa only occasionally takes them out for shows and to keep up appearances, but he just tows it and parks the truck a block away.
8. The Post Office
I admit, this one probably isn't a Ford truck, but it sure is cool. Back in the day, mail volume would go up so much during the holidays they would have to open extra mobile post offices to handle them all. From the primitive look of this truck, this was before the first world war.
If you are tuning and tweaking your Ford truck with parts you got for Christmas, the how-to section of Ford-Trucks.com can help.