Ford F100 stays in the family

Wayne Sullivan noticed an old pickup at a Boggs Lake car show he thought I should write about, “just an old farm truck, rusted and rough, with a story that’s six generations long. There was a child’s safety seat strapped in.”

He got my attention. I tracked down Jon Bowman at the NAPA store in Sullivan where he works. “Yeah, I remember some guy at the show telling me he was going to pass my name along to some woman who writes about old cars.”

Bowman drives the 1956 Ford F100 his great-great-grandfather, Gus Dant, bought new. Three-speed column shift, a big V8 engine and no extras.

When Dant died, Bowman’s great-grandfather, Glen Dant, inherited the green pickup. He drove it 12 years before passing it along to Bowman’s grandparents, Bill and Helen Ellis, around 1970.

They replaced the rotted wood floorboard with steel and used the truck on their 40-acre farm to haul grain and livestock. Bowman, now 33, remembers his grandma taking him out in a farm field to teach him how to drive the family truck.

“Everybody learned to drive on the old ’56,” Bowman said. “No power steering, no power brakes, and ‘three on the tree;’ it made the perfect learning vehicle. And it somehow remained intact.” His grandfather repainted it the original emerald green in November 1973, and the empty quart can of Acme auto paint is still in the truck bed.

Somewhere along the way, the truck rear axle snapped. “No one can remember when,” he said. The engine got new rings and bearings somewhere around 1978. His uncle, Bob Ellis, drove the truck 60 miles round trip to work until sometime in the 1980s.

The truck then was parked in a garage. “I would see that old truck sitting there, two or three flat tires, and was actually kind of scared of it.” His grandfather called it old and worn out, a piece of nostalgia he should have gotten rid of long ago.

In the early 1990s, his grandparents got the truck going again, rotted tires and all. Bowman was 14, and his grandma took him out in the Ford for driving lessons. “I still didn’t know how awesome of a truck this was. I didn’t know the story.”

The truck was stored again until 1997, when Bowman drove it to school for a week before declaring it unsafe.

In the fall of 2011, his grandpa was clearing out his barn; the truck took up a lot of space. “Nobody else in the family really wanted it, and I promised him if he would let me have it, I would have it up and running as soon as possible.”

He found some used Center Line wheels and a 1957 4-barrel intake manifold. He bolted on a Holley manual choke carburetor, tuned up the engine and applied hoses and a new belt. He rebuilt the brake system and the king pins and steering joints. The truck got new shocks, 3-inch lowering front springs, 2-inch lowering rear shackles and all new spring brackets and hardware. He flushed all the fluids, bought a new battery, changed the wiper blades, installed seat belts and put in a radio. Plus new wiring, light bulbs and housings.

He kept the body and the interior as they were, the wear and tear going back to the days of Gus Dant.

“I left the rust and rot, and all the original panels. But the best part of the whole story is that my 3-year-old son Max gets to ride along with me. I think grandma would be so proud to see him enjoy this truck.”

Got a story to tell about a car or truck? Call 812-331-4362, send an email to lane@heraldt.com or a letter to My Favorite Ride, P.O. Box 909, Bloomington, IN 47402.