One Fine ’50 – Boesch Hot Rod Concepts Turns up the Heat on his Neighbor’s Ford F1 Pickup
Rural folks just seem to have a special relationship with trucks. It may go back to the days when the Old West was being settled — when a cowboy’s best friend was his horse. Now it’s his pickup, with its 400-horsepower engine plus air conditioning and cruise control.
A good, used daily-driver pickup was one of the first things Bob Hastreiter wanted when he returned from military service in 1964. The 1951 Ford F1 he found in his hometown of Humphrey, Nebraska (population 884), was just right. In fact, he still has it, though it is not the pickup you see here.
After weighing the options of going back to the family farm or setting up an auto repair business as he began his adult life, Bob ended up as a full-time farmer with an automotive hobby shop, rather than the other way around. Years later, while looking for a ’51 Ford Victoria hardtop like the one he had in high school, Bob found a ’51 convertible to build instead, powering it with a fuel-injected Flathead. His life-long neighbor, Dale Boesch, handled the body and paint work at his shop in town. Boesch Hot Rod Concepts is widely known for building trend-setting street rods and custom vehicles. Bob and his wife Terri have enjoyed driving and showing the ’50s-style mild custom for several years.
Another tenet of the rural code of conduct calls for supporting your neighbors, which means showing up when they have a farm sale. It was on one of those occasions that Bob bought the 1950 Ford F1 pickup as the basis of the custom show truck you see here.
“It had sat out for a long time,” Bob says, “and the cab was pretty badly bent up.” But that problem was set aside when, at another farm sale, he bought a Ford F3 grain truck with a cherry cab and hood to use for his pickup. And just so nothing would go to waste, he later built the rear half into a trailer with a hydraulic dump bed for a customer.
The F1 project started in Bob’s home shop: “I tore everything down and had the frame on a jig for about a year and a half,” he says. “Then I took it down to Boesch’s shop and Dale got to work on it. I went down when I could and helped with the wiring, running brake lines, and so forth.”
The Ford’s frame has been updated with a TCI independent front suspension with rack-and-pinion steering, along with a triangulated four-bar rear setup attaching the 9-inch Ford rear to kicked-up frame rails. Ridetech Shockwave air springs and GM disc brakes are fitted all around. Rolling stock consists of Schott 18×8- and 18×10-inch wheels mounting 235/40/18 and 295/45/18 rubber.
An automobile salvage auction netted a 2012 Mustang Boss 302, which donated several healthy organs to give this 75-year-old truck a new lease on life. The stock 5.0-liter Coyote engine with dual overhead cams and electronic fuel injection produces 490 horses and runs through the six-speed automatic transmission. Bob admits that incorporating the Mustang wiring harness into an American Autowire system was the most challenging part of the build, but this may be the only ’50 Ford pickup with Bluetooth radio, side and rear-view cameras, and intermittent windshield wipers, as well as power windows, steering, and hydroboost brakes, plus Vintage Air heat and A/C.
The F3 cab and original F1 front clip received routine body refinishing, while a new reproduction pickup bed, rear fenders, running boards, bumpers and other parts came from Midwest Early Ford. The Boesch shop used a spare tailgate to help frame a storage box built into the front of the bed. Final finish for the resurrected pickup is an Axalta XP Mazda red pearl hue. Holley Retrobright headlights and LED reproduction taillights help retain the truck’s vintage style.
A ’51 Ford Victoria dashboard with Dakota Digital instruments in the gauge cluster helps to class up the interior, along with ’52 F1 stainless hood moldings on the door panels. The black leather upholstery was stitched by Starline Hot Rod Interiors and covers ’65 Thunderbird bucket seats and custom interior panels. A ’65 Mustang steering wheel mounts to the Ididit tilt column, helping to complete the classic look.
The one-time farm truck made it to a variety of show dates this season. Meanwhile, back at the ranch (as the westerns used to declare), Bob and Terri have retired from farm work and built a new home just outside of Humphrey, with a fine shop where their first farm truck, the ’51 F1, is undergoing a bit of renovation. “I’ve got a 302 and five-speed in it now,” Bob says, “but I promise it will be just a neat daily driver!”
Photos: John Jackson
