It’s Hammer Time

“Do you really need another vehicle?” Bethany the Voice of Reason asked after I informed her of my recent quest to locate and procure a classic truck.

Travis Naughton

A less experienced husband may have answered with, “Do you really need another five dollar coffee from Starbucks when we have perfectly good coffee at home?” Instead, I shrewdly made the case that a truck can be very practical and perform tasks our other vehicles cannot.

“What are you going to sell in order to make room for a truck?” Bethany the Pragmatist inquired. Uh, oh. I was only hoping to add to our (my) fleet. Parting ways with one of my beloved automobiles hadn’t even crossed my preoccupied mind. “If you get rid of something, then you can replace it with something else,” Bethany the Goddess of Logical Compromise proclaimed.

I had to admit that she had a point. A seven vehicle fleet was a bit much for a household with only three drivers. But in my defense, I only drove four of the seven. Nevertheless, I decided the best way to expedite the adding of a truck to my collection would be to simply agree to Bethany the Arbiter’s terms. Therefore I decided to part with my 2006 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor and the 1965 Chevy Impala that hadn’t run in 32 years (and likely wouldn’t for another 32 as long as it belonged to Travis the Procrastinator.)

While a friend loaded up the rusty Impala, Bethany the Generous offered him my old John Deere riding mower for free, the one I said I would repair a couple summers ago. We were on a de-cluttering roll by that point, so I sold my friend an extra set of wheels and tires that were just taking up space in my shop, too.

The purging freed up more than enough room for an old truck, and I received Bethany the Benevolent’s blessing to buy one. A few days later, a very special 1971 Chevrolet pickup was parked in my shop.

My new/old truck is special for several reasons. First of all, 1971 was the year I was born. The date of manufacture from when the truck rolled off the assembly line was within a week of when my parents believe I was “manufactured,” so to speak. Like reunited twins, my truck and I can now look forward to growing old together. But the truck was pretty special to the man I bought it from, too.

I purchased it from a drag racing enthusiast named Lester who had owned it and enjoyed it for a few years before passing it along to me. As a young boy, Lester would often walk to a nearby service station at the corner of 23rd and Crysler in Independence, Missouri, that had a light-blue, 1971 Chevrolet truck parked beside it. The Chevy was used as a “shop truck” hauling parts, going out on service calls, etc. It was adorned with hand-painted lettering that advertised the name of the garage (Hammer’s Standard Oil Service Station) and the various services it offered such as tune-ups, brake jobs, and such. The kindly owner of the service station let young Lester sit in the truck and pretend to shift gears in the four-speed manual transmission whenever he stopped by.

Forty years later, Lester spotted a 1971 Chevy truck with light-blue paint in town and he knew he had to have it. Just seeing the truck brought back some of his fondest memories of being a young boy infatuated with automobiles. After purchasing the truck, Lester tracked down the very same sign painter and pinstriping artist who had hand-lettered the Hammer Station’s original shop truck. Using old photos, a sharp memory, and a steady hand, the artist, a man named Mike Pierce, recreated the look of the original shop truck down to the last tedious detail. Where there were places with rust or scratches on the truck’s original paint and body panels, Mike took great care in painting around the blemishes in order to make his art seem just as old and weathered as the old truck itself. The final result is quite simply amazing. Mike is an artist in the truest sense of the word.

As I mentioned, old Lester has an affinity for racing and speed, and he incorporated that predilection into the reincarnation of the old Hammer shop truck. He replaced the truck’s puny six-cylinder motor with a screaming-fast 327 cubic inch V-8 taken out of a 1969 Chevy Impala. A set of custom exhaust headers and two Flowmaster mufflers ensure that passers-by will hear the hot rod truck long before they see it streaking by.

When it came time to name my new addition, the choice was obvious: The Hammer. Lester was a little sad to see The Hammer go, but like me, he too suffers from having more vehicles than real estate.

I told Bethany the Incredulous that The Hammer is definitely the last vehicle I will buy for the foreseeable future, but for some reason I don’t think she believed me. “My darling,” I cautiously reminded her, “you’ll recall I actually got rid of two cars—”