Choose A Colorful Ford Truck: 1939 Ford vs 1978 Ford F-150

More than any other type of vehicle, pickup trucks get altered in some weird ways. Usually it serves a purpose, but sometimes it’s just because someone thought it would look cool that way. In either case, the trucks sometimes outlast the memory of how they got to be the way they are, and they end up as strange artifacts of a time no one can recall. Today we’re going to look at two old Ford trucks that are definitely strange.

Yesterday we looked at a crime-fighting duo of sedans, and as I expected, the better-condition Dodge Intrepid won, even though the seller is keeping all the Batman paraphernalia. The Chevy cop car’s encroaching rust scared off a lot of you, it sounds like. Used cop cars seem to be a love-them-or-hate-them proposition, and there wasn’t all that much love for that Impala.

It probably goes without saying that I’d pick the Dodge. I really like those old Intrepids, and while an ES with the big engine would be a nicer car to have, this one feels honest, and it doesn’t have many miles on it. I’d take it straight to a detail shop to have that interior cleaned, though.

Did you ever see a vehicle and wonder, “How the hell did that thing end up like that?” Some of the things people do to cars, and some of the purposes to which they get put, are just baffling. Sometimes it makes sense if you look at it in the context of the time, but then you have to wonder why it stayed like that. Why did no one undo the weirdness, in all the intervening years? Today we’re going to check out two Ford trucks, one built for a purpose that’s now obsolete, and one that’s just plain odd.

1939 Ford billboard truck – $2,500

Engine/drivetrain: Probably a 239 cubic inch flathead V8, three-speed manual, RWD

Location: Portland, OR

Odometer reading: Ad says 250,000 miles

Operational status: Hasn’t run in many years

I know exactly where this truck is. I’ve walked and driven by it many times. It’s an advertisement for a huge furniture and thrift store called City Liquidators in inner Southeast Portland. My office used to be just a couple of blocks from it, ironically when I worked for a sign company. This gigantic, one-ton (at least) truck cab and chassis is set up to do exactly one thing: drive around with a billboard on the back. These mobile billboard trucks still exist today in some places, and they always seemed like a spectacular waste of fuel to me. But this one, from just before World War II, comes across as charming and quaint, and I can’t help but wonder what sorts of products it advertised back then.

This truck has been sitting in the exact same spot, in a fenced-off vacant lot, for at least ten years that I know of. And it’s probably been there longer than that. I seem to recall it had a friend at one point, an old flatbed of about the same vintage, but that one disappeared before I moved away. I don’t know if this truck even has an engine, but if it does, it’s a flathead V8, either 221 or 239 cubic inches. There’s a chance you could wake it up, but if you were bound and determined to put this truck back on the road – and anyone who did would be my hero – you’d probably be better off just swapping it for something more modern.

It has been sitting there with the window down for a long time, so I imagine whatever might have been left of the interior is pretty much toast now. It might make for an interesting exercise in urban archaeology, but wear gloves and a respirator when you first go in there.

Shockingly, most of the sheetmetal and trim is in very good condition. It’s not rusted out, even along the bottom of the doors, and the brightwork is still more or less bright. There’s a mural painted on the billboard section, and some graffiti sprayed on it here and there, but for a truck that has been sitting in a vacant lot in that neighborhood for that long, it’s remarkably well preserved.

1978 Ford F-150 Custom SuperCab – $2,400

Engine/drivetrain: 351 cubic inch OHV V8, three-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Warren, MI

Odometer reading: 53,000 miles

Operational status: Runs but has no brakes

Customizing pickup trucks has been an American pastime since pickup trucks were invented. Fashions and trends come and go, but personalizing one’s truck remains popular today. Making a smaller truck look like a bigger one is a common theme, and that seems to have been the goal with this F-150 SuperCab, which has a cap over the rear portion of its cab that resembles a semi truck’s sleeper, and tall smokestack exhaust pipes behind that. It’s in Michigan now, but it originally came from Georgia, and I have no doubt that its modifications date back to the late 1970s.

Under the giant chrome snout tacked on to its hood, which I guess is meant to resemble a Peterbilt grille or something, is a Ford 351M V8, which breathes through a two-barrel carburetor and wheezes out 156 horsepower. The ’70s were brutal on power output. It drives the rear axle through a three-speed automatic, probably Ford’s beefy C6. It starts and runs, according to the seller, but it needs brakes, and therefore has to be towed home.

It also needs some work inside. The front seat needs to be reupholstered, and the one door panel that we can see looks pretty rough. Restoration parts should be available, or you could just throw a blanket over the seat and call it good. Your call. The tiny back bench seat is in excellent condition; it doesn’t look like anybody ever sat back there.

Its Southern origin has spared this truck from rust, but the custom paint is pretty faded. It also has a broken taillight that will need replacing. Can’t give those county sheriffs an excuse to pull you over, now, can you? The semi truck add-ons are frankly ridiculous, but I guess if you just leaned into the cheesiness of it, it could be fun.

Honestly, I don’t know what the hell you’d use either one of these trucks for, but that’s your problem. I just present them. I guess you could take the billboard section off and use the ’39 as an actual truck, and the ’78 does have a full eight-foot bed behind that absurd fairing. Maybe there’s no amount of foolishness that can undermine the fundamental usefulness of a truck, at least not permanently. But the question is, which brand of foolishness are you more willing to tolerate?