Art & Ronnie Toy’s ’40 Ford Pickup
Words by Art Toy
In 1962 we were living in Winnemucca, Nevada. My wife found this ’40 Ford pickup as a trade-in at the local Ford dealer and we bought it for $150. It had been a ranch truck and it showed. The cab floor had rust holes requiring big patches and the bed rust was hidden with conveyer belting from a local mine.
The first modification was to replace the engine with a 265c.i. Chevy V8 from the local junkyard. We moved to Livermore, California in 1963 and the truck was a commuter vehicle and a workhorse. I reunited with a hot rodding college friend and we built an A-class Altered Roadster with an Algon-injected Chevy 327. Using the ’40 as a tow vehicle, we campaigned the roadster, holding a class NHRA record at one point until about 1965. Later, I put a camper on the truck and took it on a trip to Canada with my wife, her aunt, and three children – a bench in the bed for my wife and kids with the gray-haired aunt as my passenger.
In 1969, we left the truck with my brother and headed to Kansas for grad school. We returned in 1971 to discover that my brother thought I’d given him the truck and had disassembled it to the frame with the idea of doing some mods that never happened. I eventually recovered the truck body parts, which I stored for decades.
In 2015, I started discussions with Doug Gonzales from Lucky 7 Speed Shop to put the truck back together on a TCI frame with IFS, RideTech coil-overs, a Currie rearend, Wilwood disc brakes, and a Flathead V8 built by Yankee Flatheads in Granite Bay, CA that’s a modern version of one I had in a ’40 coupe in 1958 – Scat stroker crank, triple carbs, Edelbrock heads, MSD ignition, and other goodies. Steel wheels and whitewalls helped maintain a classic look.
Lucky 7 did a ton of metalwork, repairing the rust, rebuilding the bed with hidden latches in the stake pockets, crafting a custom rear pan, and much more before the bright blue PPG paint was applied. Inside, Ron Mangus stitched the beautiful brown leather upholstery, and Doug worked with Restomod Air to build a hidden A/C system with an electric compressor behind the rolled rear pan so we didn’t clutter up the Flathead.
The ’40 Ford pickup started out to be a daily driver but morphed into what you see today, the result of a quest for construction excellence. It still adheres to the basic theme of appearing to be a classic 1950s hot rod, with all the modern upgrades hidden.
Photos by John Jackson
