Dad's 66 lives on.

[JasontheBeaver]

This forum has already been a tremendous resource for me. I hope I can give back some information with this thread.

Dad bought this truck in 1968 in Redmond, Oregon. He traded in his '49 Ford pickup. The original owner was a woman who didn't have the muscle to drive the manual steering and manual tranny so it sat from '66 to '68 until she finally traded it in on something else. Dad saw it on the lot and bought it!

Here we are 5 decades later and the truck is mine. Oh the life this truck has lived. Very lucky by most pickup's standards. Dad took great care of all his vehicles and this daily driver was no exception. Regardless, it still had a few bumps along the way. Like the occasional deer hit and run, forays into the ditch due to nights of drinking, being crashed into a log-chain fence by his oldest son who had stolen it for a night of action in Portland....

Over the years Dad made several modifications. He added power steering and an automatic trans. The truck originally had a 283 but now it sports its 3rd 350.

It's second life was as a push truck and fire truck for the NSRA racing association in the Pacific Northwest in the 80's and 90's. We would tour the NW to such thriving metropolis' as Ephrata, WA and Roseburg, OR. To help with traction Dad installed a posi-trac read end.
By the late 90's the racing hobby had run its course when Dad's friend, Davey Hamilton graduated to the big time and started driving Indy cars for AJ Foyt, eventually finishing as high as 3rd in the Indy 500.

Once again the 66 was relegated to storage until 2006 when Dad told me he was selling the 66. "You're selling it TO ME!!!" I blurted out. No way could I let this family heirloom be claimed by someone else.
After the purchase it sat some more in storage with just a summer drive or two to keep the memories alive.
Well now I've been paying more attention to it and fixing all the little things, biding my time until I can afford the badly needed rust repair and repaint job this truck so badly deserves. In the mean time I drive this thing with serious pride. Besides, do you get to drive the vehicle that you remember STANDING on the seat, riding alongside your old man?