1934 Ford Truck -
Continued
A Member of the
Family for Sixty-Five Years
by Terry Kohl
Dean rewired the truck from a 6 to 12 volt, wire brushed all of the
rust off by hand and hand painted it with black Rustoleum paint. He found a
1934 motor block in Ohio, re-bored it and put in oversized pistons. The
engine was rebuilt by Gabana, in Mercer, PA. The same original heads were
used and Dean had the seats reupholstered. Dean comes from a family of
carpenter's. He built a storage bin on the back of the truck with sliding
doors to store his two old sets of jacks. The lid serves as a seat. One of
the original doors was replaced at a cost of $300 the same amount John paid
for the entire truck in 1938. The original door had been removed back in the
30's. In hot weather, doors came off offering the driver and passenger's
nature's air conditioning. Being used for hay hauling at the time, the
driver got stuck and pulled the door out of the back to use as traction. Of
course, the spinning wheels trashed the door.
Dean realized that it was important to protect the time and money he
spent on his nearly life-long companion, so with the restoration complete in
1993 he decided to insure his truck with American Collectors Insurance.
American Collectors specializes in collector vehicle insurance and agreed to
insure the truck for $10,000 -a value that reflected the truck's true
collector market value.
Dean's American Collectors policy cost less than $100 and the
"Agreed Value" coverage it provided guaranteed that Dean would be paid
$10,000 in the event of total loss. (American Collectors continues to
provide collector vehicle insurance nationwide and offers online quotes at
www.AmericanCollectors.com.) Dean insured the truck with American Collectors
until 2002, when he decided to pass the truck, and the wealth of history
that went along with it, to his daughter, Carol George. Carol continues to
insure the truck with American Collectors.
As a child Carol has many memories of the truck. Often, the only way
she could spend extra time with her dad was to go along with him to work on
her grandparent’s farm. She would mow the lawn and sometimes drive the
tractor. She recalls many rides in the truck. The gas tank was under the
seat so passengers would have to get out of the truck on trips to the gas
station. Jumping down from that high seat was quite a leap to a young girl.
She also remembers that in the hot, summer months when hauling hay, her dad
would take the doors off to improve circulation. The entire family would
take turns riding in the choice
front seat rather than in the back with the hay.
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