1955 Ford F-100 - Lucky Blue

John was talking with a few members of the Pick-ups Limited Club and Dunagan mentioned that his '55 F-100 was up for sale. The other guys in the group thought Dunagan said he wanted $25,000 for the truck but John heard $2,500. Later, during the same cruise, John set up a time to go look at the truck at Dunagan's house. John noticed the top was in the middle of being chopped and none of the body was bolted onto the frame. There was a clean motor and transmission but it was a running gear from a '72 Chevy truck, which wasn't John's first choice. With most of the truck in pieces John thought it would make a great parts truck for what he had been planning to build for his wife, Sandy. John handed Dunagan the cash and headed home with his new purchase.

John started on the suspension to get his dropped stance. The frontend was replaced with a Plymouth Volaré with a spindle that John modified and lowered 2 inches. While John was working on the frame parts he sent the cab and body panels to Dwain Dalton, of Dalton and Sons in Santee, California. However, the bodywork came to a quick stop when Dalton got really sick and spent the next six months in and out of the hospital. (Thankfully, Dalton was better after a long recovery.)

Moving onto the interior, John wanted some custom pieces of aluminum to be neatly placed in the dash, so he went to Micky's Metalcraft in El Cajon, where they made a custom center console and an A/C control panel with vents. The interior in the '55 was then covered with Dynomat to reduce road noise and heat transfer. Next up was fitting a seat into the cab, but John didn't want a plain Jane seat, so he lowered the bench 2 inches. Saul Bejarno from Friendly Upholstery in El Cajon helped rework the seat and covered it with two-tone Ultraleather along with the German square-weave custom carpet.

The F-100 was getting close to being finished when John rewired the truck himself, with the exception of Mike Powers who helped with the Alpine stereo install. John got the Chevy motor running and realized that it didn't run as well as he wanted, and with a little investigation he found out that the heads weren't working properly. When John removed them he found that the water jackets had rusted all the way through. At this point John was determined to get the truck on the road, so he replaced the heads, but he says if he had to do it all over again, he would put a Blue Oval motor and drivetrain back in it.

With the truck running, John and Sandy decided to go to the '09 F-100 Western Nationals for the truck's maiden voyage. Unfortunately for John, as he was parking his freshly built Ford at the hotel, the brakes went out. As it turns out, the brake switch had failed and drained out the remainder of the brake fluid from the master cylinder; five minutes earlier they had been in stop-and-go traffic. With the F-100 cruise being later in the evening John made a quick run to the parts store. A brake switch wasn't in stock, so he capped it with a brass plug and continued on with the trip. John received the Hard Luck award from the F-100 Western Nationals event promoters and was thankful he could drive it the 100 miles home instead of putting it on a tow truck.

Since then, the truck has been on many trips, like to the Big Bear California Show and the Lake Havasu Run, where he has won many awards, including Best in Show. The truck has never been on a trailer since he completed it. John says he built this truck to be driven to the shows, which is the best way to enjoy yourself and the truck.

John Dioli
El Cajon, California
1955 F-100