My first ride

My first ride was a 1957 Chevrolet 1/2 ton pickup, color, green. The truck had a steel brush bar attached to it. 

The truck, when I bought it was not in the best of shape, the side steps on the bed were rusted so when you stepped on them they pushed down than snapped back into place. The front seat was torn to ribbons so we replaced it using a Volkswagon bus center bench seat. This seat was more narrow than the stock seat which allowed the mounting of a ammo box tool box on the passenger side between the foot-well and the seat. It also meant, that from behind, it looked like the driver and passenger were friendlier than they may have actually been, (sitting close to each other).

My truck had a 3speed on the column shifter, driving through Mystic one day, shifting up to second the arm snapped off in my hand. We replaced the shifter with a Hurst floor shifter, though we never took the time to reverse the levers so the shift patter was backwards and with a non-synchro tranny this made it amusing when someone borrowed the truck..

The starter was mechanically operated, which meant you turned the key on in the dash then pressed the floor starter button. This meant you could turn the truck on, start it, take the key out and it would keep running.

We went through three starters on the truck, before Kleemans informed us there were 12 volt and six volt flywheels, a 12 volt system starters teeth were fine as opposed to the large 6 volt teeth.

 My bed looked a lot like this one when I bought the truck, all the original planking was rotted away and the metal joiners were rusted to oblivion. 

I had visions of replacing the wood and metal then having it all varnished and buffed to look new and cool...

Being 16 and not the richest person in the world I fixed the bed using the 4 ply method, just like the person below did.

We did paint the truck so it looked more like this 

than like this...

But that was about it.

I did replace the windshield in the truck, I had shot it out with a pistol and to find a new one meant I had to by a rusted hulk of a 1958 Apache utility body truck, have it flat bedded to my house and swap it out. But it did mean I got a new drivers door and no longer had to have it cabled shut and scoot across the seat getting in and out.

The truck did need an awful lot of work, but since it only cost me $50. in the first place who was I to complain.