Daily Slideshow: Lightning Strikes This 1965 F-100

Bird in the Hand

Spotted by Hot Rod at the less-bougie outdoor portion of January's Grand National Roadster Show, this 1965 Ford F-100's SOHC Lightning V8 caught their eye, but owner Rob McKeown's original plans for the truck didn't include shows. When Rob first bought the truck, as a high school kid in 1971, he was looking for something to drive... but he almost didn't get to drive it home. Technology may have changed the landscape since then but, whether it's a classified or Craigslist, an ad is still an ad and cash is still king. So when he rolled up on the F-100 and was told it was sold, Rob offered $1,050 for the pickup—50 bucks more than the non-deposit-leaving "buyer" who came before him—and the truck became Rob's.

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Plan A

The Ford stayed with Rob on his journey though marriage and into fatherhood. As he told Hot Rod: "My wife, Lisa, drove it for about two years. Our son Kelly learned how to drive in it and he drove it for a couple of years too." Then a change came. "When our daughter Kimberly turned 16, it was her turn to drive Dad’s daily driver, but she didn’t like the way it steered. I had installed disc brakes and power steering off of a ’77 F-150, which made the steering a little sensitive," Rob shared. "I really wanted her to feel comfortable driving it, so I convinced my wife that we should spend a little time and money to keep the ’65 alive." What better justification could there be for starting a project?

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Plan B

Rob, as it turns out, is a Snap-On Tools dealer, so he was connected to the automotive community in a big way. Snap-On salespeople are busy people so Rob decided to enlist the help of a hot rod shop to shoulder some of the changes he envisioned for the Ford.

Above, illustrator Mike Miernik from Miernik Design helped Rob envision the new look for his old 1/2 Ton. Mike's concept rendering used Honda Atomic Blue effect, Taffeta White, and Alabaster Silver.

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Lightning Strikes

He contacted Todd Walton Fabrication in Upland, California, initially just to drop the truck a bit and "be on the road in three months," while retaining the stock 302 ci motor and the stock Marlin Blue paint. He almost made it too... then one of his customers offered to sell him a SOHC 5.4-liter Ford SVT Lightning powerplant.

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Swap City

The Lightning engine, complete with an Eaton supercharger, was built by Valencia, California's Jim Grubbs Motorsports. Variations from stock spec include a Magnuson heat exchanger to cool the intake charge, custom headers and a custom-built exhaust by Steve Watt and Maxell Industries utilizing Spin Tech mufflers, as well as a custom aluminum Ron Davis radiator that meets the new engine's increased cooling needs.

The engine puts power through a 2002 Ford 4R100 transmission and a heavy-duty Currie 9-inch rear end using 3.73:1 gears. The F-100 rolls on Budnik’s X Series wheels (8×10 front and 17×7.5 rear), wrapped in Toyo Proxes tires (P295/45R18 front and P225/55R17 rear), and braking is the job of 13-inch Wilwood rotors and six-piston Superlite calipers.

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Drop City

The engine option may have shifted, but the drop plans still held so Rob had the frame C-notched, boxed for stiffness, then powder-coated. John Meadows from Fillmore, California's Deuces Wild Hot Rod Shop, filled a total of 192 holes in the rails. The truck was fitted with an independent front suspension system from TCI, complete with new spindles and an anti-roll bar. Out back, Walton built a four-link rear suspension, with a Panhard rod necessitated by the switch to Bilstein coilovers.

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Gray on Gray

In one of the more tasteful custom interiors we've seen, Rob had Ellery Engel Restorations in Piru, California, delete the glovebox, ashtray, radio, and speaker grille. The custom perfed-metal instrument panel holds a full set of Auto Meter gauges, a Vintage Air A/C system is hidden under the dash, and a Budnik Stiletto wheel was fitted to a tilt column. Saticoy, California's Jesse’s Upholstery shortened the seats by an inch and a half before covering them in contrasting shades of gray leather and suede, installed a woven wool carpet, and replaced the headliner with suede as well. The colors and the lines make for a synergistic blend with the pickup's exterior.

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Hardwood Floor Boards

About that exterior—it's the rare pickup that survives 50 years with its floors intact. Rob's F-100 wasn't one of those, so Ellery Engel replaced the floors, media-blasting the cab and bed along the way. Look close and you might be able to make out the bumper modifications—they were narrowed and brought into the body before being re-chromed. Easier to spot is the 1966 grille, shaved emblems, and filled stake pockets. A '67 tailgate replaces the old gate, and an oak bed with polished stainless strips replace the stock steel bed. 

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Stretching Time

The Marlin Blue paint was a casualty of the build, in its place is a DuPont Chroma silver, white, and blue paint scheme laid down by Saticoy Auto Body & Paint in Saticoy, California, with pinstriping by Mike Venditto. Other casualties of the build were Rob's timeline (which stretched from three weeks to over three years) and, unfortunately, the truck's shared-driver status. Rob's daughter and wife aren't keen on driving the pristine F-100, "for fear of a rock chip or a door ding!" While that's sad, it seems like a good enough reason to buy another Ford truck!

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