Peter Behrens's Blog, page 545
February 20, 2013
February 19, 2013
Checker Marathon Wagon, Mission St., S.F.
From our man in the City:"It seems to say " V-8 Marathon" on the side; Mission Street, SF, last Friday...I meant to investigate when I walked back on the other side of the street but it was gone. Custom rims on a lowrider Checker wagon?"-MSM
February 18, 2013
White Super Power; 1940 Mack (w.o. Bulldog); Ford COE
"Went to Napa today to shoot mustard, mostly gray, flat light. But I did run across these old trucks near Calistoga" W. Kirk Moore
February 16, 2013
Mercury M-3 Truck!
I'm on a book tour in eastern Canada, promoting my new novel, THE O'BRIENS, which is out in Canada this month (but not until March 2012 in the U.S., when Pantheon publishes the American edition). Of course I have been keeping an eye out for trucks, and came across this gorgeous machine in Grand Pre, Nova Scotia.
It's a 1951 Mercury M-3 1-ton pickup: original, unrestored, Canadian. From April 1946 until March 23, 1968 Mercury trucks were built and sold in Canada. They are rebadged versions of Ford Trucks, often with better interior appointments and more options. Sizes range from the basic M-1/M-100 personal pickup and panel delivery to heavy-duty dump trucks and semis.
Canadian truck buyers always had a choice of two nameplates on the Fords built in Canada. Because smaller Canadian towns had either a Ford-Monarch or Lincoln-Mercury-Meteor dealer, but not both, the L-M-M network got the Mercury truck.
If you follow this blog you may know that Autoliterate has a thang for Ford trucks of this era: see the posts "Trucking With Basha" and Henry with the F-2, featuring a robin's-egg-blue West Texas F-2.
We came across this truck on a sunny summer day,
parked beside a mid-19th century frame house at Grand Pre, near Wolfville, N.S. Wilhelmus Peters, the Nova Scotia farmer who owns the truck, is restoring the house.
The M-3 is pretty much all original and spent most of its life on the high, dry plains of southern Saskatchewan, where Wilhelmus found it last year. He had it shipped to Nova Scotia. It has the original flathead V8, and everything works. About the only thing not original is the chrome front grill.
These trucks all came from the factory with fenders painted black: if you wanted them the same color as the body, you had to pay a little more.
Here's a link to a youtube video of a 1952 Mercury M-3 that was sale in Saskatchewan a few years back. To learn more about the Mercury trucks, go to the winged messenger website.
It's a 1951 Mercury M-3 1-ton pickup: original, unrestored, Canadian. From April 1946 until March 23, 1968 Mercury trucks were built and sold in Canada. They are rebadged versions of Ford Trucks, often with better interior appointments and more options. Sizes range from the basic M-1/M-100 personal pickup and panel delivery to heavy-duty dump trucks and semis.
Canadian truck buyers always had a choice of two nameplates on the Fords built in Canada. Because smaller Canadian towns had either a Ford-Monarch or Lincoln-Mercury-Meteor dealer, but not both, the L-M-M network got the Mercury truck.
If you follow this blog you may know that Autoliterate has a thang for Ford trucks of this era: see the posts "Trucking With Basha" and Henry with the F-2, featuring a robin's-egg-blue West Texas F-2.
We came across this truck on a sunny summer day,
parked beside a mid-19th century frame house at Grand Pre, near Wolfville, N.S. Wilhelmus Peters, the Nova Scotia farmer who owns the truck, is restoring the house.
The M-3 is pretty much all original and spent most of its life on the high, dry plains of southern Saskatchewan, where Wilhelmus found it last year. He had it shipped to Nova Scotia. It has the original flathead V8, and everything works. About the only thing not original is the chrome front grill. These trucks all came from the factory with fenders painted black: if you wanted them the same color as the body, you had to pay a little more.
Here's a link to a youtube video of a 1952 Mercury M-3 that was sale in Saskatchewan a few years back. To learn more about the Mercury trucks, go to the winged messenger website.
February 15, 2013
peacocks & cadillac
This story is up on Basha's Oog
February 14, 2013
The Old Truck Rescue Project
This site is all about Dave Jones' collection of old trucks in Sprague, Washington. And the photos and books that Jon Sachs made when he stumbled on Dave's collection.Dave's truck collection sits on a lot in Sprague, no signs, no fence. You are welcome to wander...
February 13, 2013
3000 Old Toy Cars
The Toy Atlas Rainbow is an installation of 3000 old toy cars by UK artist David Waller. (I found it via BB and This Is Colossal)
Bruce Willard poem: Great Plains
©2013 Basha BurwellI could drive for days without fearof outrunning these patchwork clouds,
bridge lines of cumulus
this way or that towards the horizon,
midway between one place
and another, standing up
to the administrations of wind.
I like a destination which pulls
true, deliberate,
but at great distance. Like
I like the slow, imperceptible
progress of knowing
but not knowing
how far I'll travel today,
where I'll find gas
for the next leg
or when.
"Great Plains" by Bruce Willard, from Holding Ground. © Four Way Books, 2013. Reprinted with permission.
