1966 Ford F100 – Rick L.

In 1979, when I got back from Korea I went home to Maine on leave and bought a 1970 step side Ford pickup and drove it to Fort Bragg, NC where I was stationed.
My sister and brother-in-law lived in Norfolk. When I would go visit them, my brother-in-law kept asking me to sell him the truck. One day, he made me an offer I couldn’t turn down, so I sold it to him. That weekend, my buddy Bill followed me to Virginia to take the truck up. On the way up, we saw an old truck sitting in a field (1966 Ford). So on the way back to NC, we stopped in and talked to the older gentleman that lived there and I bought the truck for $250. We went to the local parts store and picked up a battery, points, fuel filter and some gas and went back and got it running. I drove it back to Fort Bragg.
I was rebuilding a 289 at the time to put in the truck. I talked to my dad in Maine, and he set it up so when I went home on leave, the body shop in town would paint the truck for me.
I ran the truck until 1984 when I got out of the service and moved back to Maine. Then, I bought a house, got married, and started a family. The truck really wasn’t practical with a family, so I sold it.
Move ahead 21 years! In 2005, we bought a new house that had two garages, so I bought a 1961 Ford unibody to restore as a project. While talking to people about parts they told me about someone that had a bunch of 1961-1966 parts trucks in a sandpit on his property. I went down to check it out and there was my 1966 Ford that had been in a wreck. It took a lot of persuading, but I finally talked the man into selling it to me and I am now in the process of restoring it once again!
Move ahead 17 years! I knew that one day I would get the truck fixed back up, but I never made the time to actually do it. In 2022, my wife and I attended the Endless Summer Cruisin in Ocean City, MD. I was so inspired that I signed up to enter my Ford in 2023. It was a lot of work and endless hours, but here it is!