It would be a shame to paint over this livery. Usually, a vintage vehicle is about preservation, not destruction. This find on Bring a Trailer is both: a hard-working 1971 Ford F-100 Sport Custom pickup, complete with trash cans and brooms in the bed. It wears years of patina and the name of the racetrack where it worked, Islip Speedway of Long Island, New York, said to be the site of the first demolition derby.
In 1958, so the story goes, race promoter Larry Mendelsohn noticed that the crowds cheered for the winners, but far more loudly when there was a crash. So, he figured, what if the race was all crashes? The resulting demolition derby was a bar fight on wheels, and the sport became hugely popular in the 1960s and 1970s.
See all results for Ford Pickup for sale near 95370. And, just like a real bar fight, somebody's got to clean up the mess afterward. That's where this faithful old F-100 turned up, ready to sweep up the wreckage, spread oil-absorbent on the spills, and haul away bigger chunks of carnage in its bed. It was basically the janitor from Scrubs, except as a pickup.
View Price on AmazonThis truck also would have seen more legitimate racing, including the last NASCAR race to be run at Islip Speedway, back in 1971. At two-tenths of a mile, the track was the smallest in the NASCAR Grand National Series, and it would have presented a challenge for the drivers that may well have taken them back to their short-track Sprint Car racing days.
The truck is charmingly battered, an ornery old corner worker with an inexhaustible supply of stories from the good old days. It has hand-lettered signage and checkered flags, a blanket covering the bench seat, and a three-speed manual on the floor.
Particularly cool is the glovebox, which has picked up dozens of scrawled signatures over the years. There are a lot of memories baked into this F-100, and it's sure to be in the backdrop of many photograph albums from the track's golden era.
The engine is a 302-cubic-inch Ford V-8 that was good for a little over 200 horsepower when new. The oil's been changed, and the truck also wears fresh tires. As a relic of 1970s racing on Long Island, it's a rolling conversation piece.
Throw in a scale model, and this truck is a running piece of history from when local racetracks were able to keep their lights on all over the U.S. This F-100 cleaned up hundreds of wrecks. Its story is worth preserving.
The auction ends on June 5.
Source: caranddriver.com
