I forget his hamb name but Eric Black has been doing some cool work with a shop building basically Napco style trucks. Super cool stuff.
Aside from hotrods, vintage 4WD's are my other love. I have (and have had) many. Its really hard to beat a tall original 4WD with tall skinny aggressive tires
While not a 4x4, these power tandem rear axles were very popular around New England for retrofitting logging trucks. This '41 Ford I spotted awhile ago also had a taller stock style front end I believe.
I love the original Napco stuff. Never owned one, but they were definitely purpose built. In high school my buddies dad bought a 1965 Power Wagon, Crew Cab used by the Forestry dept. It was a real rarity in the early 80's because Crew Cabs weren't a thing yet. It was super slow, but man, it couldn't get stuck if you wanted to. It looked a lot like this, but it had faded out forestry dept stickers on the door.
Here’s some of mine 4WD’s past and present. This may be a rare time I get to show them off on the Hamb haha Ryan I know this is about as off topic as politics and religion. Feel free to delete if you want…
I remember seeing a lot more early Fords than Chevys and the Fords were oh so Tall and aggressive looking. Coming from the foothills of the Adirondacks (Way Upstate N.Y.), fwd was handy in the winter and several of my friends made extra money by mounting plows on their rigs. Never succumbed to the 4 wheel drive madness!
You just get stuck-er. But it is fun. Man was still trying to conquer Mother Nature in 1957, the planet still looked mind-blowingly vast and largely unexplored. That’s not a political statement, is it? I hope not, it’s meant simply as an observation. The video reminds me of that prevailing ethic.
I'm on my 4th 4wd vehicle. Had two CJ Jeeps, a 84 F150 and now a 99 F150. I'll never own a pickup again that isn't 4wd. I don't go off roading per say, but I have used mine many times pulling old vehicles out from where Mother Earth was trying to reclaim them. And low range is great for that extra bit of pull when you are trying to move a heavy load across a soft yard without tearing it up. My stuff gets used, but not abused, Well, not much abuse. Sometime you just gotta yank and pull to free stuff up. Pulled my 1955 IH tractor out of the pond the other day after I got in it bushogging. Without my 4wd pickup, I'd had to call a wrecker. That red truck of Chris's just does it for me, would love to have one like that. It reminds me of the old Alabama Power Company trucks from the 60's. They had a bunch of them in their fleet, used for everything from meter reading in rural areas to line construction crews. Now all their trucks are vanilla white, just like everybody else.
Man I’d love to have one of those Napcos! @NoSurf wants me to post a pic of my ‘68. F250 I think he’s tryna get me banned!
i know, they missed the cut off by one year. i can't believe what early model broncos are going for now. i should have held on to mine. i always favored half-cab models, less space to heat and a whole lot quieter going down the road.
@cactus1 "Most of us like old things beyond hot rods and customs and I thought it would be kind of neat to have a forum to post the shit we find and restore..."
Very impressive performance, especially for 1957. But could you order the truck with a .50 cal. mount option in the bed?
Keyboard player for the Doors Ray Manzarek had a Napco pickup... There was a picture floating around on the net. Now I can't find it...
The Jalopy Journal
