Early hot rodders squeezed the best out of the junk they had. Fenders and running boards came off to save weight. Hop-up parts scored second hand from circle track racers made their way onto flathead eights for more horsepower. Keeping with this pioneering spirit but using modern technology and parts is the Truckster, seen here on display at the Painless Performance Products booth at SEMA 2009. The Truckster started out as a 1978 Ford pickup and a concept drawing. A custom frame was fabbed up, and the large part of the ’78 cab was fused with a Model A bed, a ’38 Dodge Grille, ’37 Chevy headlights, and interior leather sourced from a Ford King Ranch edition. While the Mercury flathead in between the frame rails is from 1952, fuel and air induction is a modern upgrade. Hanging out inside what looks at first glance to be a pair of old Stromberg carburetors is electronic fuel injection. Two injectors per throttle body are joined by an ECU to make the Truckster a genuine modern gow job. Getting the Truckster in gear comes by way of an Ed Roth monster style shifter topped by the sculpted likeness of none other than Alfred E. Neuman himself, complete with signature toothy grin. Potrzebie!
The custom Neuman shifter sculpt is a beaut. That’s some love right there.
I’ve never really been one that got into the old school rides. The bloated muscle cars seem to hog all the spotlight. Enormous boats with gobs of torque to make up for their unimpressive horsepower numbers (given their displacement) that might do a fine job of keeping you from claiming the cash on the dash, but disappoint when the road gets twisty never really appealed to me.
But now I’m seeing a whole new world of hot rods like this one. Crazy, custom shit that reflects not only the insatiable thirst for power and speed afflicting any true gearhead, but a passion for craftsmanship and individuality. This Truckster is such a vehicle. I love the use of the almost too popular these days orange mated to a balanced package of chrome and machined finishes. There is a side of this thing that’s strictly business. It’s form following function, but it’s ends justifying means too.
Long before my time, gearheads were taking whatever they could find and figuring out how to make it work. Nowadays, when there’s innumerable options to facilitate cookie cutter production, it’s so refreshing to see people out there still look to those oddball pieces. Not that they have to, but because they WANT to. That’s awesome.