Number one, it's attention getter. Number two, it's definitely a fan favourite. Number
three, it was a lot of work. Former car race driver Davey Hamilton has swapped the fast lane to build a one-of-a-kind 1952
Ford backwards pickup truck. I'm Davey Hamilton and this is my 1952
forward, backwards truck. Wait! It drives backwards! What the heck? So a friend of mine up in Maine, who is a former racer, I went to his place and he actually
had a truck that was somewhat like this, but I took it another step farther
So a lot of the trucks, older trucks, have really small back windows
They don't have the wide ones. They're still little. and I'm from Indianapolis
So I looked all around the Indy area, couldn't find a truck with a big back window. I happened to find this truck
like three miles from my father's house. He sent me some pictures, I go, perfect, get it
As far as the body it all the original body the frame original The steering column and the pedals it all still original And then we had to put the lights on obviously going the wrong direction
I didn't know what to do for a bed cover, so we figured to keep it rustic looking, we just use this piece of plywood
But then you can see inside, it's just a 350 Chevy engine with a turbo 350 transmission. Yeah
One key thing was a big radiator because the air going through the tailgate wasn't that good
So you can see we had to cut a hole for your feet to go inside the bed, so we had to seal all this up
make sure no water and stuff came in inside the truck. We actually took seats out of a Clarisse Razor. We just had them, right
But the dash, we built it. My dad actually built and broke this dash out of aluminum, got all the gauges in it
I always get mixed up on which door to get in, but obviously this is the door
The right door is the one you're supposed to get in all the time
So I just took a racing fuel cell and put it in for a gas tank. Fenders brake lights taillights blinkers It has to have windshield wipers It passed It has everything that required to have in a car All the body mounts had to be turned around and switched So getting it to where it looked proper and like it was a regular truck per se like it looks pretty good
It looks like it's supposed to go forward and so it took some time to get everything leveled out
and make sure that it was mounted properly so it didn't bounce around
This backwards vehicle is also easy to maneuver once you get the hang of it
It's easy to drive. It's got, like I said, good brakes and all that that goes with it
But it's still, in the day, still a 1952 Ford truck, right
So, but it's fun. It's not too aerodynamic with the cab backwards
I'll tell you that. The front end is so long. It's the bed, and you're looking over the bed
So it takes a little bit to learn where you're at. And as you can tell, it's a little tighter, right
The cockpit's not quite as much room as if you turned around
I've had it up to 85. I really don't want to go any faster. It goes pretty good at that speed
It doesn't handle great. I definitely don't want to put it on a racetrack. It's really a 52 Ford truck
I don't even know how to value that thing, right? I don't have any idea what it's worth to somebody, but it's unique
I been offered some money for it but I wasn ready to sell Unsurprisingly this unique vehicle gets a lot of attention out on the road See now you guys at the bar over there
People get a kick out of it, that's always fun, right? When it makes somebody's day, it's probably cool
People have told me that, I haven't smiled like this for a long time, so that's pretty
cool, right? That's the kind of reaction you get, right? Yeah
People just like this gentleman, they want to stop you, they want to talk to you, they
want to look it over and ask questions, so you definitely don't want to be in a hurry
The town I'm from, everybody talks about it, but it still gets reactions
There's new people that see it every time we take it out. It's definitely a crowd getter
I haven't been pulled over yet. I've kind of been waiting. I actually passed a cop once
He waved and off he went, like most people. You know where in the rules it says where the body's supposed to go
Yeah, it doesn't matter