Yellow Pine Bed Wood - Finishing Suggestions ?

[Green Machine]

Going to replace the bed wood in our 71 during restore process. This will be a very nice driver, so we are going to use Southern Yellow Pine to replace the wood, same as original, but use unpolished stainless strips.

I want to use an oil finish, or maybe some thinned paint, something that does not build a top caot and peel off, just something that can be cleaned and then re-appled as needed. I don't want to get into stripping finish off, we would like to be able to use this one as a truck, but keep it looking decent, not perfect.

Thought I read on here about using some thinned out black paint to simulate how the older wood bed trucks were done, any one remember ? Thanks