It never occurred to me that this thread doesn't seem to exist on this site so, here goes:

What got you into driving Fords in the first place? For some, it's probably a family/generational thing, but for others, it's not...

My grandfather (on my mom's side) told me an interesting story about what he and his brothers did to a Model-T back during the Great Depression... Did you know that the Model-T and the Model-A shared the same frame and suspension? From the windshield-back, all one had to do was unbolt the "T" cab/bed; remove it; bolt on the "A" car body; then switch it back, when needed...

My father has a visceral hatred for Fords, but, to this day, will not tell me why... I grew up in a Chevy household... My first vehicle was a 1978 Chevy Scottsdale "Heavy Half" pickup...

In my early youth, I was hooked on the Chevy Corvette - It was, in my mind at the time, a cool looking car so, why not? I didn't know any better...

In high-school, one of my classmates pulled up into the parking lot with a Mach-1 Mustang - it wasn't much to look at - the paint was badly oxidized and whatnot... But after he hit the throttle and lit up the tires, even the Chevy guys were going "DAAMMMNNNN!!!" It got my attention real quick...

I went through a Mopar phase for a while - had a P.O.S. '73 Charger for a little while... It was getting beaten by just about everything so, I evolved out of that scene...

In the early 90's I got a job driving auto transport out of the Port of Tacoma - it was an "under the table" job that involved driving all kinds of different vehicles to various places including auto auctions and sales yards throughout the Puget Sound area - some of the vehicles involved were rental turnbacks from Alamo rent-a-car in Alaska... It was that job that really got me hooked on Fords... I had driven a LOT of Dodges/Chryslers/Chevrolets/Cadillacs/Buicks/Oldsmobiles/Fords/Mercurys/Lincoln/etc... Even a Delorean (that one was scary)... And, out of all of those, I found that the ones that seemed to be put together better; were the most comfortable to ride in; and got better mileage per gallon of fuel were all Fords/Mercurys/Lincolns...

The one vehicle that we had to make sure had a chase vehicle behind it with a gas can was the Chevy Blazer... Horribly underpowered and drank gas worse than a starving vampire would drink blood from a hemophiliac...

Since then, I've heard complaints from folks (my dad included) that Fords are expensive to work on - I tell them that the reason for that is that they don't need to be worked on as much as a Chevy does therefore that's why Ford parts are not sold a dime-to-the-dozen...

 

I've always owned GM vehicles and still do, my 56 is powered and built on a GM frame. I've owned one Ford in my life and that was a 75 Ranchero but it the same year I purchased a new Chrysler Cordoba in 81, the Ranchero was for winter driving to save the Cordoba from the winter roads. I did like the Ranchero and was sorry to see it go when I was laid off work and needed some cash, still wish I had it. The 56 pickup I'm building now will be all Ford. I've always loved the look of the 56's.

 

I grew up literally in a junk yard/shop environment. All we cared about was driving minibikes and go karts between the cars until the teen years. Dad had a wrecker and we were picking up cars it seemed one a week. Most of them needed little work to run, drove mustang convertibles, galaxy 500's, slant 6 dart, 400 small block impala, 65 chev van. Then just before I got my license, 76ish buick 350 which I was pulled over in for running a stop sign at night about 3 months before getting my license. Long story short $25 fine. (those were the days!)

After getting my license(16) I built a mild 400 pontiac with ported 326 heads 10.0 comp 280 cam in a 68 tempest decided to do a burn out in front of this guys house with the car packed full of buddies. Usually 1st gear was a waste so tried 2nd gear and with all the weight it hooked for the first time. Dropped in first and let 'er have it, long story short blew the rearend AND stripped all but 2 teeth off the input shaft in the transmission. Pulled the motor and put it in a light 78 cutlass made it 3 miles and the crank broke. Must have cracked when I blew the rest of the drivetrain. Enough GM.

My Uncle put a stock 351w with a 4 speed toploader and dinky(smaller than 7.5) stock 4 cylinder rear end in an 81 notch one of the lightest mustangs ever. I hounded him for a looong time and finally he sold it to me. I pounded the piss out of that thing constantly and never broke anything. Changed engines here and there just to try a 302 and 289. Never broke anything and never looked back.

Rebuilt many sbc's v8', v6's and some sbf's. The boring bar sounds different when boring a ford. Ford pours their blocks upside down so the better metal is up by the head, resulting in less cylinder wear. I could go on and on why fords are better at least in the years we were comparing. A chev headed co-worker was over when I was doing a 351w and a 350 at the same time. The ford took an hour less to tear down, and we stood the cranks side by side...He never talked smack after that. Built a lot of sbc's, cam lobes gone, upper cylinder wear, and spun bearings. None of these issues with the sbf.

 

I use to be a GM guy , My Pop was . Still own my 53 Pontiac .
Pop Hated Fords after a few bad deals . He swore he would not own another one . After 1968 , he was true to his word .
He turned GM except for a Datsun . Most my childhood was spent in GM vehicles .
I progressed to motorcycles and drove Many makes , Many Hard miles . Along the way I owned many cars and trucks .
I was influenced by my father , many GM vehicles , Harley and Jap bikes . A few British bikes for good measure .He was sad Indian was gone , still have a pic of him on an Indian Four .
Fast forward ...Toyota , Subaru , VW , Chevy , Ford, Isuzu , Nissan , Dodge ,Renault , Etc..... Owned them all ,
Bail out came , I sold both my GM trucks and my Dodge van .
Nothing but Ford since . Bailout killed Any chance of me Ever owning a GM .
Fiat owns Dodge CRAP now , never planned on owning another dodge , that killed it for sure !

 

What will they think of next, it's actually a very popular truck around this area next to GM

 

If you can't dodge it , Ram it !

 

You can also dodge a dart.

 

I come from a family that had a lot of 'Stovebolts. But my Pop was actually pretty far spun off the beaten track. At one point he had over eleven cars, from a 1936 Cord with a Lycoming flathead that he never did get running - up through 1950's era Desoto's with the pre-chrysler hemi's, a '57 Olds Delta 88 with a 400 "Rocket Motor", and a 1975 Caddy Eldorado front drive pavement crushing lizard....

Towards the end I must have influenced him in some way - he began to collect Honda Civic CVCC cars, being an aerospace engineer I think the idea of the pre-combustion chamber in those cars was wild and strange enough to fascinate him.

In there somewhere was a '63, '64, and a '68 Chevy II. The '64 had a 283 in it. I know that for a fact because I caught him reversing a maincap in it and had to get involved to get it built right....

"POPPA!!! Das arrows must point to der front!"

I got to drive that car a few times, and for stock it was WIKKID...

*The others had inline 250's. Single downdraft Roaches - very depressing altogether.

My Mom was a total Oldsmobile addict. She went from the '57, to a '76Cutlass Supreme, and eventually drove to Alaska (from Scranton PA) with a friend of hers in I think a '90's Cutlass. That was her last car.

Oldsmobiles are different, I think. Different engine, built for reliability rather than performance, and good fuelage. They carry you and your friends in an acceptably living room environment to where you want to go, without diving off the deep end into pure luxury car.

But my first Ford was a '73 Gran Torino, and to this day I dunno why I went for that. The guy who sold it to me was an inoffensive thoroughly Christian electronics tech with a wife and such, and a car that had got majorly slammed while parked around a bad curve in Santee Cally.

It turned out to have a 351 Factory 4Bbl Cleve in it, and was a 2 door. It had a four on the floor and side pipes... It was also so heavy it couldn't get out of it's own way, but cruising the coast in it as a young E-5 with everything possible and the windows down was unbelievably satisfying. When I got done rebuilding it, that thing would lay rubber smoke down in fourth.
I recommend a car like that to everyone, even if it IS impractical today.

Four bolt main caps, and stock intake and exhaust ports in the heads the size of the Mississippi river delta (and they were cast iron heads, I'm not kidding). I dumped $1600.oo in that heap as an E-5 just to get it streetable. It was trashed...

Between the two heads there were nine major cracks identified, because they kept on driving it when the IDIOT LIGHT temp sensor burned out. NO LIGHT -NO PROBLEM, YA FIGURE? Geez....

I felt sorry for the car, I really did. Such an excellent artifact gone to waste, the product of so many hands.

A set of heads was found in a shop in south bay that nobody came back and picked up. I burned $300 clams, but lucky me - they are as rare as hens teeth. The guy told me he stopped halfway to the base and dumped a gallon of water into the radiator just to get from Santee to Mira Mesa....

After I let that go I went five years at least before thinking Ford again, and the reason was that oddball twin I-beam front suspension got me thinking when I saw an '82 F100 with a for sale sign on it in Norfolk Virginia. It had a very blown V6 in it, and I stuffed a crate 302 into it. The next thing that happened was 33 inch super swampers. I barely got it done in time to transfer back to San Diego - but that SOB was a blast to hum across country in! When I got stuck in traffic near the base in California, I ran offroad up to the next offramp. Like the cops were going to follow me through the tumbleweeds!

But the whole thing was, I wanted to study that suspension, because I figured if I could modify THAT...

I could lift any damned thing.

At the time I was tooling around in an '89 Taurus Wagon that got near 40MPG on interstate road trips, so what the hell I wanted to do with that truck is still a mystery. I think that was generation ONE of the BULL-wagon, I saw them everywhere

So it wasn't really about brand, or money, or any of that. It was pure hotrod from the start.
Get a piece of smoking broken crap. Turn it into everything I wanted it to be.

I have gotten in big time trouble doing that with other brands, but those two worked out so smooth it was silly.

For one thing, everyone I talked to about it knew all kinds of cool stuff that was possible.


The F100 was also the reason I first came to Kens website. I was looking for good advice online.
I had most of what I needed to know, but sometimes a dash of interest or somebody to share with goes a long way. Back then we also got hit with 9-1-1, and my Mom passed away from a massive stroke one week later to the day.

One year later I lost my Pop - and in all of that Ken and Co. were there for me.

Sometimes your brain just needs someplace else to go


It's a "FIXATION", I admit that. But for me it works.

And now I have an unfinished '89 with a Windsor...


I also wanted to mention, that there is always the Adam Sandler song to consider:
"Piece of poop Car"

What happens if what you drive is not what you wanted? You got it because you could afford it, someone talked you into it, you didn't really want that...

I have learned to be at least a little bit choosy. If I can't afford my absolute choice, I will settle for one that IS in the ballpark, but got ruined by someone else.

And I know I can make it better.


But I will be TEN TIMES DAMNED if I will ever drive a clapped out K-CAR - or some rotten ugly pile of stink that was handed down to me by a relative because I:

"Needed a car, and they were going to scrap it"


CHOICE is everything

When I say I am a "GREASER", I mean that in terms of what I am willing to be seen driving, and what I will put myself through in order to get THAT THING

It also means: The best things in life are home made



RAT RODS are bitchen....

If it has a frame, you can do anything you want to it, just like a tractor.
THUS: Trucks.
And therefore also FORD


~ even if it's a car...



You should see the Mustangs that appear in my friends driveway for advice across the street


FORD is a choice. POS car is another...
And possibly the absence of choice



I CHOOSE



I have an idea of what I want


~DONE~
Make what you can of this

 

Good last line ....
Been there myself , brain needs someplace else to be .

 

I like the twin i-beam off road, unhooked a 4x4 chev that couldn't pull a wagon through a ditch, hooked up a 4x4 Ford and walked it right through. I still snow plow with twin i-beam and will as long as I can.

 

That's it for me too Greywolf. When I bought the F-100 last fall, I thought "I have all the parts to do a turbo 300 in this thing, and nobody will see it coming or believe it." As I was building it however, I felt like I would be flamed for being lame. Fortunately it turned out otherwise.

 

Chevy: good motors/transmission, but built like a passenger car where it counts to be built like a truck, that nice interior falls apart after 5-6 years.

Dodge: All the motor in the world hooked to piece of ****..............and that motor won't last that long.
Obviously built by the lowest bidder, good suspension/rugged, but unrefined and clumsy, horrible interiors, reliability/quality a cut below Ford/GM.

Ford: Good motors, maybe a tad less hp than GM, OK transmission, build quality far better than Dodge, built like a real truck but not a bruiser to drive, over-all quality holds up better over the long run than GM..............however, their styling dept. and I seem to have parted ways.

 

Not really sure how I came to drive Ford. My dad wasn't brand loyal, he had a Cutlass from my earliest memories, then a Chevy Citation, a Chevy Celebrity wagon, a conversion Chevy van, a Jaguar Mark V Saloon, Buick Regal, and a motorhome on a Ford E350 chassis. Before I was born, I've been told he had at least a VW Beetle and a Duster.

For me, when it came time to get my license and start thinking about getting my first car, I mentioned a Mustang. I ended up with a Datsun B210. That car was a rolling learning experience, might be a contributing factor to why I'm a mechanic today.

But when my buddy got his Mustang, with 225 hp, I was getting to drive a 3-1/2 ton Uhaul with Ford power. Not sure what it had, but there was no shortage of torque. Easily way more power than his Mustang.

Got myself a Tempo after high school.

Then he got a 75 K5 Blazer, I started looking for a 78/79 Bronco. Never did find one, so I started looking at newer Broncos and actual trucks. Found a 77 F100 with a fresh 302, thing was a blast to drive.

He ended up with a third K5 Blazer after wrecking one, and his brother wrecking the second, and I ended up with an 85 Bronco 2, after a Toyota pickup and an abandoned attempt at a project 74 F250.

As we got to the stage in life where we settle down, he and his girlfriend got a (surprise) mini Blazer, and I got a Ranger.

At this point, we look back and realize we're both brand loyal. Me to Ford, him to Chevy trucks, but he still likes Ford cars.

Moving forward from there, he got a 69 Blazer lowrider, an Isuzu truck for a cabin/weekend beater, and now a 2500 Silverado Duramax for a daily driver.

My wife just had our first camping trip with our daughter and knew my Ranger wouldn't fit a baby seat, so we took her Tucson camping. That ended up being so tight that when we got back we traded it in on an Expedition.

I drove my Ranger until my wife went back to work after our son was born, then it developed a misfire. She was scared to drive it to work, and the hard decision was made to sell it.

At this point I have to say that truck was the perfect candidate for a V8 swap, and I would have done it at that time, but the stars and planets weren't aligned for me. No time, no space, and with pressing issues of needing a way to get to work with both kids to daycare in either vehicle...

So it was sold, my wife got a Buick Rendezvous with the money my Ranger sold for.

After more camping and trailing, the Expedition was quickly running out of room for all the stuff we "needed to bring". Namely, bicycles.

So that brings us to now, we traded in our Expedition in on an 09 F150 that outperforms our Expedition in every way except passenger seats.

To be honest, I gave up brand loyalty a long time ago, as we looked at Yukons before we got the Expedition, and looked at Silverados and Rams before we got the F150. We even looked at an Escape, a Taurus, and a Magnum before my wife got her Rendezvous.