My Dad passed April of last year. A small inheritance came after but it really bugged me to just spend it paying off the car, or some bills. I wanted something more than a receipt to remind me of him.

At the same time, I always wanted an old truck. Seemed to me that I am at an age where it probably is the last vehicle I'll ever buy. That seemed fitting so with the OK of the Misses, I set off looking for something.

I'm a renter. Have almost no room to work on something and not that much experience in automotive to begin with. The chosen truck needed to be already running. That looked pretty achievable based on today's prices. The biggest part was finding the right one.

I mostly looked at Studebakers because the Fords and Chevys seemed to carry a premium price. I was also strongly gravitating to 1948 and earlier.

Then I found the 48-53 pilothouse. Like most every Dodge ever made, it was more reasonably priced and ahead of its time in design. They had a lot of style. Used to have something very similar to this on the farm where I was raised.

That took about nine months. I bought and shipped a '53 daily driver home. I expected to convert the brakes to a dual cylinder master and to lower ratio differential and still come in under budget.

I was pretty excited and got some good advice from this forum.

But then, when the truck finally arrived, we did an inspection and got some more good advice.

Now you're all caught up. And I am moving forward with the project. As Dad often said, "Nothing good worth having is ever easy."