By Brad Taber
Well. . .
It’s actually a 70 dressed as a 67. . . and the box came off a 68 parts truck!
I was cruising Craigslist one day and spotted an ad for someone selling some goats. I emailed the person and told them I had no interest in buying a goat, but wondered if the old pickup beside the barn might be for sale.
I was put in contact with the granddaughter of the original owner. She told me her grandfather had purchased it new for use on his horse ranch in Phillipsburg, Montana. She said it spent its life on the ranch and she had many memories as a child of using the truck during harvest season as well as hunting trips as she got older. She said the truck very rarely left the ranch and was last registered in 1978. Although she didn’t have any supporting documents, she assured me the 40,700 miles were the original miles on the pickup.
She said when her grandfather passed away, she ended up with the pickup with dreams of one day fixing it up. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, months turned to years and the old pickup sat beside the barn slowly sinking back into the earth. She’d come the the realization, it was never going to happen and loved the truck enough to know she needed to let it go to someone that would do something with it.
We made a deal, and I told her we were coming in style to pick it up. I called my buddy with his bump side ramp truck and told him we had a mission.
The old truck was in a sad state, it had sat for many years and become home to who know how many mice. I got the truck home and got it cleaned out and running and started fixing everything that needed fixed.
Although the truck was originally ordered as a chassis cab to be fitted with a flatbed, flatbeds aren’t really my thing. I happened across a 68 camper special that was still wearing its original Harbor Blue paint. I picked that up for the box and a few other miscellaneous items.
I started referring to the truck as “The Goat” because of how I found it, but after I got it running it was obvious the exhaust had rusted off and all that was left was a straight pipe. My then 2 year old son, Ranger, for whatever reason, took an immediate liking to the old truck, but he had his own name for it, LOUD TRUCK. Every night I’d get home from work and as soon as I’d come in the door he was waiting for me wanting a ride in Loud Truck. So, away we’d go to make some hot laps around the field.
It took about 6 months of long nights and weekends to get it to its current state, but I love the truck, and so does Ranger. It’s far from perfect, it has some ranch wear and still tells the story of its ranch life.
