Old Car Kook's 1951 GMC
This 1951 GMC is original, but cosmetically restored. I bought my '51 GMC in 1991 and fiddled and diddled with the truck until I got it on the road in May of 1993. It was sold new in 1951 to Mr. George Newell of Hanson, Mass. to use in his trailer business and park on Brook Street. He ordered the truck with the optional Huckster Bed configuration, which is an all oak bed with a galvanized tin lining. It was designed to carry vegetables and then be used for street selling/vending of produce. The truck has a full canvas with hoops so it looks like an advance design version of a covered wagon.
When I found this truck in a junk yard in Milford, Mass. in 1991, it had 20,364 original miles on the odometer and it still had the original key in the ignition. The truck had been in storage since 1967 when the junkyard acquired it in 1983. The owner of the junkyard had fortunately realized what a gem the truck was and had the presence of mind to put it away in his barn for inside storage. It was and still is an original, highly optioned, low mileage truck. The kind that you figure are all gone by now. The story is that it is true, the diamond in the barn really does exist and I have since heard and read countless stories of other diamonds being found in various places, though the common denominator is that they are ALWAYS found in inside storage where they have been for 20 or more years.	The Original Truck
A Rear View	For example, we recently had an auction in Vermont of a property that was owned and occupied by an old hermit. The story is that he had accumulated some 70 plus totally original Stutz and Dusenberg vehicles driven in and parked in the barns...just after World War II when he had acquired all of them at cheap prices due to the gas shortages. They brought over $1,000,000 at an IRS property auction after his death. My truck is a 3/4 ton, with all original 228 motor and was delivered new with all of the following options: 5.47:1 rear gears, 4 speed transmission, fresh air heater, Unity spotlight, Unity foglights, huckster bed with canvas, trailer hitch, rear directionals, air horns, and a pyrene fire extinguisher. The original owner used the truck to pick up garbage in the trailer park and to move trailers. He would drive around on Saturday morning and blow the air horns and people would toss their rubbish in the back as he crept along in first gear.
I believe that just about all of the 20,364 original miles were in first gear due to the immaculate condition of the truck. I completed the body off restoration in October of 1994 and the truck is driven almost daily during summer months. I am currently the Technical Advisor for pre '55 GMC light and medium duty trucks for the National Chevy/GMC Truck Association and a few other groups including General Motors Media Archives Department Detroit, MI. I've got lots of factory data on old GMC's and I also own a '51 GMC Suburban that is currently unrestored.	The Finished Product

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