In September 1979, Alex Stark bought a brand-new Ford F-150 and inadvertently started its legacy as a family heirloom.
The pickup was a highly-optioned model, even though Alex intended to use it as a workhorse for his farm and lumber business.
Jim Sutherland
Eventually the truck was used up by the hard work, along with a few mishaps that shortened its life along the way. One of the mishaps occurred early when the F-150 ended up in a lake and required repairs at the local Ford dealership.
Another mishap was a rollover that inflicted serious damage on the Ford’s body, so Alex was forced to ease it out of active duty, even though his beloved Ford pickup was still driveable and did some time on the road before he parked it.
Nevertheless, the 1979 Ford F-150 remained with Alex until his death in 1990 when it became a part of his estate sale. When his son Dave bought it from the estate, he became the second generation in the Stark family to own the truck.
The reason was simple: Dave had built his own memories of his father’s truck and wanted to bring it back to its glory days to honor his dad and build new memories with his sons Matthew and Andrew during the restoration. The boys had reached an age where they could contribute to the process and learn along the way, so Dave tackled a very challenging restoration on his dad’s legacy pickup.
Dave is a licensed body man so he could to direct his boys on the restoration while taking the time to do things right. He wanted to raise the body build standards to blueprint quality, so every gap had to be perfect, and the lines had to be straight as an arrow. Dave’s vision was aligned with the Ford engineers’ vision of a perfect body fit, even though factory standards were lower than perfect.
Dave chose a difficult path, given his truck was a rollover and had also endured years of abuse on the job, along with the ravages of winter, over the years. His game plan included undamaged recycled parts and every available NOS (new old stock) part he could find during the process.
Dave steered away from aftermarket body parts because they were poor quality and required too much work to make them align with his high standards. His goal of a perfect blueprint body for his truck meant only the hood and front fenders from his father’s original truck were useable in the project.
Dave also taught his boys about patience because the project took six years before he was able to resurrect his father’s pickup. The restoration included a galvanization process on vital metal components such as the box and cab corners, along with the front fenders. “We killed the rust worm”, in Dave’s words.
Dave also added a few improvements like a bedliner and box rails to enhance its appearance, but he stayed with the Ford F-150’s rare paint scheme when he resprayed it. He described the project’s completion as a time “when the work clothes came off and now it’s got its tuxedo and tie”.
More importantly, Dave preserved his father’s memory with the 1979 Ford F-150 project and built more family memories with his own sons during the restoration process.
But it doesn’t end there, Dave now has grandchildren who can build their own memories with their granddad in his own father’s Ford truck.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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