Pick up truck remembrance !
Bought my first truck off of Smokey Yunick in Daytona , about 1960 or 61 , cost 1,700 dollars , about a years wages for a 16 year old kid . Six cylinder GMC . About 1963 I saw mt first P.U. with an ...
Forum Discussion
JIMNLIN wrote:
The starter on the floor I had were not under the accelerator pedal but just above so that the right foot was on both when starting.
Pickups were rare in the '50s and early '60s with mostly in farm and ranch work. Panel trucks were more popular with service people and big station wagons with outdoor urban people. Later they faded from existence as pickups and now SUVs became more popular.
The pedal by the throttle was normal for many years and models. Did not use a solenoid or relay, just mechanically moved the starter drive to the flywheel, and closed a high amp capacity switch.
But some of the high dollar cars of the day, Packard IIRC, the starter switch was in fact under the throttle pedal.
Mid-'50s Ford used a button on the dash to start, and a separate key operated switch for the ignition.
One day Dad caught me in town in uncles '55. He took the key and went to the farm to drop of Mom, and find somebody old enough to drive the pickup home. I finished what I was sent to town to do, wedged a quarter between the screws on the switch, pushed the button and went home.
Before I started school Dad had a '50 or '51 F5, was the family car. We rode in that little cab, brother on Moms lap, Dad driving, and me standing on the seat between them. If we where coming home, and Dad wanted to stop at the bar 1/4 mile from the house, he would turn the corner, put it in low, and step out. I would stand in the seat and "keeper her between the ditches" until we got to her parking spot, then shut the key off. But by the time I was 13, he would get made if I left the farm in the pickup or car. Thought he was going to die when he found out, at age 14, that I had been stopped for overload in a '57 B model Mack with a load of beans.
My first pickup was a '54 GMC 3/4 ton that had been rolled. Used pipe over bumper jack and come-along to jack cab back close to in shape. If needed to take the truck to town I could slam the left door hard enough from outside to get it closed, get in and out from the right. Around the farm, just let it rattle.
