The economy…

Things are not good because of the economy. I have been waiting for work, with no luck. Now I am thinking about selling my truck. Should I?

More pictures.

I love to take pictures of my truck.  There are days when everything seems to be right and the result is great. Look at these examples…

 

 

Daytime Running Lights

Not all modern cars and trucks have daytime running lights because they are authorized but not mandatory. They first appeared in Scandinavian countries back in the 1970s and only in the 1980s began to appear in cars and trucks assembled by General Motors. In Scandinavia and in Canada they are mandatory.

There’s a discussion going on about the use of daytime running lights and not everybody agrees that they improve our safety on the roads. Studies conducted in Scandinavian countries showed that they reduced head-on collisions during the day by about 10 per cent and this is good enough for me to think that they help.

There are many kits available in the market that allow us to modify our electric system and transform our low beam headlights into daytime running lights. These kits are basically made of transformers that reduce the brightness of the headlights to about 70% of normal and keep them on whenever the ignition key is turned on. In other words, when you start your engine they go on and when you stop the engine they go off.

In later years General Motors came up with a system that uses the front parking lights/turn signals as daytime running lights. There are kits for this hin the market which aren’t too expensive nor too difficult to install. The video below shows my truck with one such kit and how it works under the various conditions.

To know more about this kit click here.

I regret but I can’t…

There’s nothing I love more than the open road, except going on the open road with my Chevy truck. The old 54 is riding like a dream and there are no major mechanical problems that might keep me near home.

So, when a friend of mine came to me last Saturday and invited me to go to North Carolina with him and two others for a couple of days I felt a jolt of excitement taking over my whole body. It would be great to spend a few days on the road and take pictures of the truck all over the place. And North Carolina is a beautiful State that I would love to visit with my truck.

Three motorcycles will go on the trip, two of which are leaving Miami this morning (Weds., May 18), for Sebring where they will be joined by a third bike. Their return do Miami is scheduled for Sunday, May  22nd. The weather forecast is good all the way and their trip should be great.

Unfortunately I can’t make it. I will have to be at my granddaughter’s 3rd. birthday party on Saturday and I had to decline the invitation. Darn! If you were in my place what would you do?

Photography and my truck.

I am not a professional photographer but I know a little bit about how to set a camera properly. Things aren’t too difficult with the new digital cameras because you can set them to “Auto” and their tiny computers will take care of everything. And then there’s the computer at home, which allows you to tweak the pictures they way you like.

So, it’s not too hard to get great shots and most of the time I’m happy with the results I get when I an taking pictures of my 54 Chevy truck. Most of the time… because there are occasions when I take 50 pictures and only one of two are any good.

And then, there are occasions like yesterday, when I went out to Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport just before the sun came up and had a great session. The picture below was the best of the bunch. I have looked at it many times and can’t find any flaws there. At least to my taste, this picture is great! I hope you agree with me.

 

LEDs

In the old days the lights that came installed in cars and trucks weren’t as bright as they are now, especially with the 6 volt electric systems. Therefore, if you have an old truck its lights may be difficult to see during the day and even at night, due to the intensity of the brightness in other cars’ lights.

Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are a good sollution to this problem. They are much brighter than regular incandescent bulbs, they last a lot longer and they require much less energy from the battery.

The video below gives a good idea about the brightness of LEDs.

Never mind about the two guys running on the road. They are Miami firefighters doing their morning exercise to keep in shape…

These parking light LEDs replace the regular lens and the light bulb that go inside. They come with the socket and they are easy to install. They can be found at LMC Truck (www.lmctruck.com).

The bed hole LEDs are also very easy to install since they are made in the exact diameter of the hole. The trick here is to find a way to pass the wires down to the parking light and keep them invisible. I bought these lights at Classic Chevy & GMC Parts (http://www.classicparts.com).

Original License Plate

 

Many people have asked me about the license plate I have on my truck. It is an original plate from the same year of the truck, 1954 and I bought it during the “Turkey Run”, in Daytona Beach, Florida, back in 2000.

In Florida the law allows me to have this plate as long as I follow some rules. First, the plate has to be in its original state. In other words I cannot paint it or rebuilt it in any way. Then I have to fill a form and send it along with the plate to the Departament of Motor Vehicles, in Tallahassee for approval. The plate is then registered in my name and returne to me to be installed on the truck.

There are lots of sites on the Internet that sell antique old plates like mine and you can buy yours online. They are not too expensive and there are virtually thousands to chose from. But first I would advise you to check the law in your State to make sure you can do this and also to find out exactly what you have to do ir order to have your plate registered in your name.

Need a new logo…

I think it’s about time I changed the photo on the top of this page. The truck has new whitewall tires and a new paint job. So, give me a few days and I’ll take care of that.

(Photo updated May 16, 2011 – 8:00 A.M.)

I remember when I first saw my old truck.

I don’t mean the truck I own now but its model, the model of pickup truck that General Motors made back when the average price for one gallon of regular gasoline was US$ 0.21 and you could buy a good house for less than US$ 25,000. In other words I remember the day when I saw a 1954 Chevy pickup for the first time. It was a brand new dark green truck with the front grill painted in white and the fenders black. The most striking differences from the previous model were the panoramic windshield and the cargo bed. A closer look also showed the redesigned dashboard and door handles.

I remember it well. That truck had just left the showroom and it smelled like a new car. It was quiet and it looked imposing. It wasn’t mine and I didn’t even know its owner but it made a big impression.

What’s the big deal about remembering this truck? Well, do you remember the day when you broke your arm for the first time? Do you remember when you got your first bicycle? And do you remember the day when you first went on a date? How about the first time you went to the beach? I bet those were significant moments of your life and they were etched forever in your memory.  

Seeing that 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck for the first time marked a significant moment in my life. Maybe not because of the truck itself but because of the times and the kind of life I had back then. My parents were alive and so was my only brother, who was 18 months younger than me. My bicycle was still new, although it was already two years old at the time. And I was at an age when I was becoming very interested in cars and trucks and wanted to know everything about the vehicles that were born in Detroit.

At the time there were lots of brands of pickup trucks made in America. There were good looking trucks with names like International, De Soto, Fargo, Mercury (in Canada) and Studebaker as well as Ford, Chevrolet, GMC and Dodge.

I remember well. And I also remember that at a certain point in my life I decided that I was going to do whatever I could to rescue at least part of those memories, by buying a 1954 Chevy truck like the green one I had seen back then. I had to wait for a long time but my dream came true 38 years later, when I found the truck that I now own.

About the prices of a house and a gallon of gas in 1954 I have to tell you that I don’t remember details like this. I had to spend some time searching for the information on the Internet. But I can assure you I remember the truck, as well as the exact spot on the street where I saw it…

I like my truck and I like what it represents for me. In a way it was part of my past and it is part of my present. I hope I can keep it and make it part of my future too.

Is the classic car and old truck market slowing down?

I don’t know much about the economy and its trends these days but there are plenty of bad news about unemployment, a high rate of foreclosures and more. It would seem that every sector of the economy is either completely paralyzed or close to it. Well, to be honest I know that things aren’t as bad as they were about a year ago but I also know that we aren’t completely out of the woods yet.

I also don’t have any data about the state of the classic car and old truck market. Are people buying more classics, or is this sector of the economy also suffering? I simply don’t know. The government doesn’t keep track of that and if someone does the data isn’t published.

But there are things that make me happy these days. A quick visit to eBay will show that there are plenty of people bidding on classic cars and old trucks and some of the bids are simply astonishing. I have seen old trucks getting bids that go over US$ 20,000 and following those auctions will show that the items are aggressively disputed by many bidders.

The auction company of Barrett-Jackson, “The World’s Greatest Collector
Car” auctioneer is also thriving and doesn’t appear to be having any problems selling the great cars they have lined up for the four huge auctions they have scheduled for this year.

  Hemmings, who also calls itself “The World’s Largest” never seemed to have reduced its huge collection of classic cars and old trucks for sale. Their selection is as good as it ever was and the wide variety of items being offered for sale there indicates the market is absolutely normal.

Maybe I’m being overexcited about what I see in this niche of the market. People may argue that there are more items being offered for sale than actually sold and that the bids used to be much higher than what we see now. As I said above I don’t know. I may be wrong but it feels good to see high bids in auctions of classic cars and old trucks because classic cars and old trucks are considered to be a hobby and not a necessity. If people are still coming up with high bids it may be wise to hold on to our classic vehicles, because they are not and will never be something you just throw away to die in some abandoned lot. They are valuable and they will keep being valuable in the years to come, no matter where the economy goes.