Mancar1 wrote:Here I am with my F-1/10th. Doesn't haul much, but fun ride.
ManCar1, now that's a truly original and awesome response! It looks like traction is no problem, since you were able to get the front wheels to raise up off the ground like that! A wheelie bar might need to be added for safety before taking it on the drag strip.
As a teenager a family friend gave me his 1960 F100 Flareside (3-on-the-tree + 240cid [or 223cid?]). I think this is my only photo of it:
Despite being slow, profoundly clunky, and turning like a rhino in a Roman water pipe, this was the most
care-free vehicle I ever owned, for these reasons:
- My total cash investment in it was about $500 (mainly new tires).
- No seat belts! This was the only vehicle I ever owned that had no seat belts, and although I like the idea of seat belts (and have gone to great pains to upgrade #50's seat belts), I must say NOTHING compares to the convenience of jumping in, turning the key and rolling!
- The short pickup bed was a real pleasure to drive with, since visibility was very good. It was even better once I'd removed the bed! Parking in tight spots was actually fun and easy, since I could see exactly what was behind me.
- The body on this thing felt much more heavy and solid than a Bumpside body (which isn't exactly a tin can either)! The doors, fenders, cab, and hood were SOLID!
- It got amazingly good gas mileage compared to the other vehicles I'd had up 'til then.
Then one fine day my German friend Mani and I were driving it up Highway 1 (just North of the Western Drive intersection, for those who know the Santa Cruz area), and heard all kinds of crazy HONKING from other cars! I looked back and there was an enormous, billowing white cloud blasting out of the exhaust!
We got the thing turned around and made it all the way home to Bonny Doon, and the engine never started again.
Since I had several other project cars at the time, I sold the '60 to my friend Matt for $300. He pulled the head off the I-6 and found a big crazy
chunk missing from one of the pistons! And everything else in there looked basically fried from a billion miles of service.
Later on he pulled the I-6 and installed a car 390 and C6 combo, which gave the truck a whole new attitude. I rode in it once after that, and it felt totally out-of-control (in a good way). A few months later, he was driving it down Bonny Doon Road (a long, steep mountain road), took a corner way too fast, and literally drove right off a cliff! Mani was following behind him in his '65 Mustang and pulled over near where the '60 took flight. He ran to the edge of the road and looked down the dark, steep redwood forest canyon, and there was the '60. It had been severely and suddenly re-styled by a redwood tree, and steam was billowing out from under the hood.
Seconds later, he saw Matt kick the door open and start crazily
bounding up the face of the slope, yelling, "I'm OK!!! I'm OK!!!"

Amazingly, he walked from that accident with minor bruises, yet the 1960 F100's life had come to a dramatic end.
I've always had a special fondness of the bulldog looks of the Forgotten Fords, and I hope to restore one some day.
Robroy