1962 Ford F100 – Dale G.

After 23 years in the U.S. Navy Reservist I retired and I was hired to teach art at a brand new elementary school at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I already had a long career as a teacher as well as my Navy career. I was living in Ohio but I was offered the position which of course required our family to relocate near Campbell which straddles the Tennessee/Kentucky border.
We bought a house in the country in a mostly rural. This got in great since I wanted a spacious lot to build a shop on. So after moving in we began to plan to build such a garage. It was outfitted nicely with 2 bays, a bathroom and shower, and a loft for extra storage. This was a sort of tradeoff since it prevented me from putting in a lift.
I already owned a 64 TBird which I had for over 30 years and had gradually been restoring. One day I had the Bird parked in my attached garage when a gentleman approached me and introduced himself. He had seen my car since the overhead garage door was open.
It turned out that he was the President of a local car club and he invited me to attend their local events. I did so and eventually became a member.
A couple of years later he offered to sell me his 62 Unibody big window F100 for a very reasonable price. I bought it and began the laborious task to trying to get in back in roadworthy condition.. It pretty much needed many components such as brakes, water pump, battery and battery tray, distributor. Gas tank, belts, hoses, tires, and a whole new cab floor. It also had some rot in other laces besides the cab. It had been a farm truck in Alabama and had not been on the road for at least a decade.
I wanted to build this as a tribute to my Dad who was a World War II Marine and a farm boy as well as other family members on my side. This was meant to also give a nod to my Wife’s family who had strong rural farming roots.
Even though it was hard work the build progressed and culminated with paint and body work expertly carried out by one of our car club members. I say car club even though many of these guys also own antique trucks.
I have tried to keep it reasonably original so it still has the old 292 YBlock and the 3 on the tree shifting setup. I also keep the original brake setup except for adding a duel chamber master cylinder. I also added AC since it gets really hot here in Tennessee.
The paint scheme is a little flashy for a farm truck but I wanted it to have some visual pop.
As you will see from my pictures it could easily have been relegated to the scrapyard.