Excerpts reproduced with kind permission of Custom Car magazine

If you know your early Ford trucks, you will already have spotted that this is a '51 Ford F100, but all is not quite as it seems, the truck is a full custom 1951. There are the bits of Buick, Chevy, Pontiac, and many other year Fords in the custom build.

The truck originally only came in for a roof chop, having been bought by Gary Ireland as a ‘fully built’ hot rod.

Customer service

"The first thing I do when a customer brings a car or truck to us here at Burnham Autos is check over the whole vehicle," explains grand poobah, Paul Burnham.

"As a result, I told Gary it wasn't going anywhere unless it was on a trailer as the way the Day Van front clip had been put in was downright dangerous."

So the schedule of works changed abruptly from a roof chop to a new Mustang II-style front clip. Then how about air ride? And then maybe we should look at the back end ...

In the end, it wasn’t until Paul and the boys had been right through the chassis and mechanicals that they came back round to the roof chop.

An interior that wouldn’t look out of place in a 1920’s Art Deco Rolls Royce

There's a lot of work in that front end, using parts from Ford, Rover, Mercury and Cadillac.

The 350 / 350 Combo was in the truck when Gary bought it. He had the gearbox rebuilt, the engine has just had a clean up and mild detail as it all seems to work just fine.

Hot cross bun

"Wherever possible, I always use a whole roof for a chop so it doesn't end up looking like a hot cross bun," explains Paul. On this one, that roof came from a Chevy truck. "Gary sees it when we're in the process of mocking it up and says, 'I've always liked the peak in the roof of a Chevy truck. Can you .. ?" Does the Pope pray?

Including the peak was the easy bit, mating the v-butt windscreen and making it look angry, not surprised, was harder, and to do that the roof was nipped in the middle and the peak dropped down a bit. "By pure luck, it has the Mona Lisa effect," continues Paul. "It frowns at you as you walk round it. You couldn't make this stuff up, could you?" No Paul, we couldn't.

The dash top then obviously had to be modified to suit the new 'screens. Yeah, a lot of work.

Alongside that, the restoration of the body itself was pretty straightforward, Paul describing it as in reasonable condition when they got it and not requiring a whole load of replacement panels, as many seem to.

The other big bonus was the 350ci Chevy small block it came with all seems to be in good shape, and the TH350 gearbox had just been rebuilt, so at least those parts have remained largely untouched.

The parts stash

"Once the chop was done, Gary started talking about full custom, and we love a full custom down here, so it was out into the parts stash to see what I could find," remembers Paul gleefully. The front end took the brunt of the custom treatment, starting by having four extra teeth wedged into its mouth, but then things took a turn for the Mercury when a pair of '54 headlamp rings were grafted onto the ends of the Ford centre bar, so neatly that the whole lot was good enough to send off to the highly recommended Graham at Colonnade Metal Finishers in Wembley (www. colonnademetal.com) for chrome plating.

Beneath that sits the end sections of a mid-'50's Caddy bumper, pulled from the legendary Burnham stash, but then scaled down to better suit the proportions of the truck. All except the Dagmars, which were left stock because, as Paul put is, "everyone likes big tits, right?" From the cab back, things are closer to stock, albeit a different year to the rest of the body, though the rear wings have been widened by 1¾ inches, ostensibly to fit the 10 x 15s on the 12-bolt Chevy truck axle behind them. "Yeah, we call her Julie," grins Paul, referring to the dually­like proportions.

Wheels are 6 and 10 x 15 chrome with 205/70 and 295/50 rubbers though the next time you see the truck it'll have 12 x 15s on the rear.

That rear bumper is a '55-'59 Chevy truck part, while the tail lights took some working out. "We like special tail lights at Burnhams," says Paul, "see if you can guess what they are." I got the '50 Pontiac bit straight away, but you're a better man than me if you clocked the plastic chrome bezels they sit on were once front hub centre caps from a Mitsubishi Shogun. Dave Mackley, Burnham's auto sparky, gets the credit for the work there. As it goes, they were supposed to be '54 Olds 98 units, and that was another of Gary's ideas. "He bought an NOS one ... " remembers Paul, "and I've spent the last 1O years looking for another one. Not a chance." Hence why they had to be a bit more creative.

Not so happy finish

Now, however, comes the sad bit. Paul:

"Three quarters of the way through the build, Gary's circumstances changed and he was unable to finish the truck.

"Part of the build process here is the relationship we have with the customer, and we've got to know Gary pretty well. Neither of us wanted the truck to just sit there unfinished, so I ended up doing a deal and buying it off him, but it's recently changed hands again.

"It's Gary's baby though. We all put our ideas into these things, but the big bits that make this one different, they were all Gary's ideas." That's not the end of the story, but it's where we'll leave things for now, other than to say that the new owner has already started putting his mark on the truck. The air ride has all been updated and it'll have different wheels on it next time you see it, and we suspect that won't be the end of the changes.

It's a shame Gary hasn't ended up with his very own Dream Truck but, like all good customs, it's evolving with its new owner. and maybe we'll return to the story in another few years to see how things have progressed.

See those 'vents' in the bonnet sides? The raised profiles were handmade in ¼-inch bar, welded and leaded to the panels. "We're still looking for some suitable trims for those," says Paul