My first TF truck.

[OrrieG]

I changed my avatar to the first Task Force truck I owned. I had driven my Dad's and Orrie's 46 panel but this is one I bought in 1968 at a Forest Service auction. 1957, 235, 3 speen short step side. It had 56,000 miles on it. The guy that had used it most of its service was there, he was a maintenance supervisor over on the Oregon coast. He did not want to get rid of it but the government had a policy that they only kept light trucks for 50K miles. I paid $425 for it, which was equal to 6.5 weeks pay at minimum wage (1.60) before taxes. I was working at Weyerhaeuser as an apprentice millwright getting 3.65 and hour and thought I was living high. I got it as a DD, my 57 210 that was getting to be a pain to drive on the street to work (and even at 25 cents a gallon gas was killing me).

I kept it until I got drafted in 1970. I sold all my cars, spare parts, etc. because I did not know what was going to happen. I kept my tools, but they were stolen from my Dad's shop about 6 months after I left for the Army. They only took my stuff which was stored in a separate shed and did not touch the main shop or my Dad's stuff (it would have been easy to get into too). Always bothered me because my Dad had a strict rule that only 3 of my closest friends were allowed on the shop property. I figured someone must have overheard a conversation or knew about it. I replaced the tools only to have them stolen again in 1974 from my apartment in El Paso. Set number three has been with be since.

[Kim57]

That's a cool story OrrieG.
Kim

[Knothead]

Do you have any other pics?That truck was in great shape! Looks like some fat tires on the rear. Nice Impala in the background.

[OrrieG]

No, those are the only photos I have of the truck and 57. I don't know why but even though I had a good camera and photographed the heck out of buildings, landscapes and other artsy-fartsy stuff I didn't shoot any of the cars. Somewhere I think I may have some out at the drags but have not come across them yet.

Here is another shot of the Impala. It was one of my best friends. He wanted a freeway flyer so we dropped in a 375 hp 396 and disc brakes off a Corvette. We changed the rear end gears to 2.73. Transmission was a Muncie 4 speed. The weak link was the center universal, I got to where I could change it sitting off the side of the road in about 1/2 an hour. Speedo went to 120, we had it buried at the bottom with the engine still pulling many times between Eugene and Cottage Grove on the then relatively new I-5 freeway. I've looked at rpm,trans, rearend, tire dia speed calculators and it looks like we were topping out at about 140 or so. With the gears took a while to get there.

[xpickup]

OrrieG, great pictures. I love seeing old pictures of automobles and buildings. They had so much better styling than now.