Big Daddy Needs Bling!

Posted on November 8, 2007
Filed Under Cars, Humor |

Turning fifty wasn’t the hard part. Turning fifty and staring at the 1970 Ford sitting in the driveway everyday, watching as the cancer spread from her once-glorious hood to the side of the cab and across the one ton long bed – that was the hard part. Remembering the excitement as his Dad pulled into the driveway with her for the first time in the fall of 1969, remembering what it was like to sleep in the overhead camper with four brothers during trips across the country, remembering her barreling down the boulevard in 1972 with the DMV inspector sitting in the passenger seat checking off little boxes on the driver’s test – that was the hard part.

Her name is Big Daddy. When his daughter was a toddler she made the distinction between his Chevy S-10 and the Ford by calling them Daddy’s little truck and Daddy’s big truck. One day the Ford came roaring around the corner and she squealed, “That’s my Big Daddy’s truck!” The name stuck.

She is his inheritance. A two-tone, F-250 Camper Special, the white and mustard yellow pickup had been in pretty good shape over the years. For the past twenty she has taken up space in his driveway, sometimes running, sometimes not. She was always registered, even if she wasn’t running at the time, and more times than he cared to think about she was his primary transportation when his “regular” truck was down. Turning fifty himself, he spent a lot of time looking at her, remembering.

It started as a simple repair job. A few years ago he pulled up in front of the house and jumped out to run inside for just a second. He left the engine running but threw her into Park. A few minutes later, one of the neighbors came over and said Big Daddy was running backwards down the street, taking out everything in her wake. Having the tendency to drop into Reverse automatically, Big Daddy was now a quarter mile away, knocking down mailboxes and scraping cars. The driver’s door was now peeled back, along with a good portion of the front fender. Another neighbor jumped in and turned the wheel before she hit anything else. After an afternoon of replacing four broken mailbox posts and a few months of searching the bone yards, the white and mustard yellow Big Daddy now sported a blue front fender and red and white two-tone door. She wasn’t pretty but she was back on the road. Actually, she had never really been off the road – you just had to slide in from the passenger side because the driver’s door was hammered shut.

After a while, staring at her everyday through the mustard yellow and the white and the red and the blue and the rust colored cancer eating away at what was left her became too much for him to bear. She was Big Daddy. She deserved better. No, she deserved better than better. She deserved to shine. With new paint. With new upholstery. With her transmission leak fixed so she wouldn’t drop into Reverse automatically. With new trim pieces. With chrome. With Bling!

First, he bartered with a friend to do the body work and re-paint her for $3,000. Then he found an upholstery guy to do the interior work for around $500. After that was done, the dingy dials of the dash board became even more obvious so he learned how to remove the dash and paint the plastic. He figured while he had the dash pulled out, might as well get a new circuit board so the lights and gauges would finally work again. That was only about $150 or so. Oh, and it’s probably as good a time as any to replace the rubber stripping in the window channels and doors so things would seal better. Those pieces were a bargain, $250 for each side. At least with that done, the wing windows would open again. Considering the heater had blown constantly for over twenty years because of a stuck valve, that was important. A new heater core was hard to come by. Ford stopped making the one he needed so he had to find something else that would work.

One thing led to another. Every new piece of Big Daddy only served to remind him of how much more he needed. His addiction grew. His need for extra money consumed him. He started mowing lawns for old ladies in the neighborhood after work and on weekends. He was like a ten year old saving birthday and Christmas money. He drank more beer so that he could trade in the bottles and cans for recycle money. Hey, no one said he had to be logical. Big Daddy beckoned. Big Daddy was hungry. Big Daddy needed Bling!

His first piece of new chrome was the rear cab molding. After he finished putting it on, it was so beautiful he cried. Then came new door handles, followed by the Sport Custom logo for the side of the truck bed. He bought new Camper Special logos from some guy on eBay for $20. Poor guy didn’t even know he was sitting on a gold mine. Then came the really expensive stuff. The bullet shaped side molding dividing the white from the mustard yellow was $500. The front hood molding was $200. The taillight bezels were $50 a piece. The Bling, while beautiful, is beginning to add up.

Still, Big Daddy cries for more. She needs lower side molding ($600). She needs the tailgate molding ($300). She needs a rear bumper ($250 for the original Fey step bumper in chrome). She needs. She wants. She is driving him crazy.

Nearly a year after turning fifty, he is no longer sad when he stares at her in the driveway. Filled with pride, he drives her everywhere. Old men look longingly at her from across the roadway. He smiles and nods.

Still, Big Daddy cries for more. He has spent about $8,300 on her so far. His Mom reminds him that Big Daddy cost $3450 brand new in 1969. Thanks, Mom, for the update. By the way, do you need your lawn mowed?

By Stephanie Tallman Smith

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