A 56-year-old truck that calls Texas County home won in the “ugliest” category in the first-ever “I Love My Truck” contest sponsored by Rural Missouri magazine, a publication of the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives.
The ugly truck’s owners are Paul and Lola Smeltzer of Bucyrus. This is their submitted entry:
“Hello, my name is Scrappy. I am a 1962 Ford F-100 4×4. That is ‘Bug,’ a truck’s best friend, riding shotgun. She protects me from squirrels, rats and mice that nest under my hood, eating hoses and chewing wires. My current caretakers purchased me in 1993 to haul native stone for their house building project. You can see a few of the 122 tons of rocks I carried in the house walls. Several loads of stone I carried weighed more than three tons each.
“I did not think I was that strong but I am a Ford and my low range ‘granny gear,’ with a littledetermination, got me through the Ozark hills and hollers. My front bumper was high and my driver was looking at the sky as we traveled through trails on those trips. As you can see, I have a transplanted cargo box. The only available donor was an old Chevy pick-up. The price was right or I would have held out for an original Ford part.
“Similar to many senior citizens, I smoke, I leak fluid, my clutch slips, my brakes don’t hold, my joints squeak and it is hard to just get moving. My odometer has rolled over three times but stopped at 52,212.5 on the fourth roll when the odometer cable snagged on some driftwood as I was negotiating a rough creek bed.
“I am now retired from rock hauling and currently enjoy resting in the shade of the rock walls that I played a part in building.”
Other categories in the contest included “prettiest truck,” “classic truck” and “work truck.” All winners are featured in the April issue of Rural Missouri.