January 2009:  Came back from summernats and for some reasons best not discussed here I had a bit of a change of heart and decided an alternative interest away from Cortinas was the go.  Something big and American it had to be. The search began....

January 31 2009 - Searched and found this 1955 F100 fresh out of Arizona.  Apart from the paint, dash, power steering and air con and a couple of little things here and there it is completely original, down to the original 55 year old front drum brakes which are barrel of monkeys kinda fun in the wet.

 

Close up of the flames. Very hard to justify in a photograph as they start out purple then change to blue then black at the rear. I'm gonna get them added to.....finish them off so to speak.

Left Hand Drive, "3 On The Tree" Column shift with electric overdrive. Stereo is in the glovebox and 6X9 speaker boxes under each seat. Plans here basically are to do away with the buckets and fit a bench seat back to it and do away with the nasty looking carpeted steering column - reminds me of the houses back in the 70's with carpeted toilets. K.I.S.S.

Original 272 Y Block V8. It has air con and power steering so theres no excuse not to drive it everyday. By the time you read this the generator will be gone in place of an alternator. 25 amp output just wasnt cutting it. Plans here are to add another approx 250 cubic inches and 500+ horsepower.

Dakota digital dash - apparantly these are worth a million dollars but I'm still not sure I like it, it draw sway from the character of the pickup.  Might still go back to an analogue instrument cluster. If you have one and wanna do a clean swap let me know. K.I.S.S.