1956 Ford Pickup

After driving a 1962 Oldsmobile for a while, I felt I needed something with lots more "cool" attached to it and I came across this 1956 Ford pickup. It's been too long and I don't remember how I came across it or where I bought it but it was somewhere in Long Beach and I think I paid $650 for it. It was in pretty good shape. It had a 292 cu V-8 engine and a 3-speed transmission with a shifter on the column. The body was pretty rust-free and painted a very dark purple. It had chrome-reverse rims with baby moons. Although it had the less desirable smaller rear window, it was lots of fun to drive and looked great.

I did some work on it over the year or so that I had it. It already had bucket seats but I did put in some blue shag carpeting(!) and, of course, installed an 8-track player. I am pretty sure it was my Muntz 4-8 player. I built some custom speaker boxes with slanted fronts so they sat on the gas tank behind the front seats. I painted the interior with a dark, metal-flake gray, applied some fake wood grain, and a set of gauges.

I did use it to haul my 1966 Honda 305 motocycle around, mainly to ride it off-road out in Orange County. In 1972, probably in August or September, I drove it to Grants Pass, Oregon and hung out there for a while before going into the army. It ran great all the way up and back.

Unfortunately, when I went into the army in the fall of 1972, the truck was unable to follow me so it was sold.

Unlike today when we seem to take lots of photographs of everything, I've gone through my old snapshots and I've only come up with a few of that truck. I've included them below.

The speakers from the truck. Radio Shack innards with custom boxes.

Click on an image to enlarge it.


Updated March 2021.

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