Final time we noticed Winslow Bent he had began an organization referred to as Legacy Basic Vans in Driggs, Idaho, simply west of his dwelling in Jackson Gap, Wyoming. At the moment, he was exhibiting Autoweek his newly refurbished 1947 Dodge Energy Wagon, a truck so fully and completely restored that we did not even wince once we heard it could value its purchaser $225,000.

Legacy takes vehicles just like the basic Energy Wagon, Diamond T, and Studebaker all the way down to the naked steel, makes that naked steel higher, then builds them up from there with new interiors, new wheelbases (the place needed), and new, extra highly effective and dependable crate motors making way more horsepower than these items ever had when new. Since beginning the corporate in 2008, he is accomplished about 120 such truck rebuilds, every ranging in worth from $200,000 to $450,000, “relying on the complexity of the construct.” Construct time is “a couple of 12 months however lower than two.”

That was six years in the past. Within the intervening years, Bent has gone considerably Hollywood. Or no less than YouTube. We stumbled throughout his YouTube channel, This Outdated Truck, by chance. Right here was this smiling man with what he admits is “loopy COVID hair,” speaking about one thing referred to as a 1942 Ford Marmon-Herrington four-wheel-drive SnoGo. A SnoGo, it turned out, is a large machine that attaches onto the entrance of a truck and actually chews up all of the snow in entrance of it. You name within the SnoGo when the common snowplows have piled the snow too excessive to maneuver anymore. The SnoGo is available in, eats all of it up, and spits it out.

To point out the seriousness and severity of the SnoGo’s operation, Bent fired it up and tossed in just a few watermelons—okayersploosh!—they acquired devoured and spat out, their remnants launching right into a discipline about 30 to 45 ft away. Fairly the shock to search out that the man with the watermelons was our outdated good friend Winslow Bent. He had began this YouTube channel and appeared to be having a good time.

“A number of my enterprise is, I’ve to supply numerous autos for individuals,” Bent advised us later. “So I spend numerous time driving round locations like Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and sort of assembly these loopy outdated timers which have cool items of equipment round and, in consequence, I’ve simply had this rising checklist of those outdated timers which have superb items of apparatus.”

Accumulating Truckers’ Tales

So he felt an obligation to doc all of it. He noticed his job as a historian, accumulating these truckers’ tales whereas there’s nonetheless time to do it.

“They’re dying, you already know, and after they go, the story of those vehicles and what they did, it goes as effectively.”

So he began filming their tales and importing it to This Outdated Truck on YouTube.

He sees the tales of those vehicles because the story of the Outdated West. After the cowboy, the horse, and the wagon, there was the truck, and the truck did every part.

Considered one of Bent’s energy wagons.

“You have a look at post-WWII, all the growth that occurred within the Western United States, you might have dams, logging, bridges, telephones, energy traces, and all these items, it was the railroad that introduced it out to the central hubs, and from there, it was onto vehicles. The vehicles did an unimaginable quantity of labor constructing out the Western U.S.”

Every truck had a particular process and was upfitted for it.

“I used to be simply at SEMA, and I believe one thing like 60 p.c of individuals will do one thing aftermarket to their truck. And the identical was true again then. So you would get your 1935 Diamond T truck, and you are like, ‘I would like to switch this factor so I can use it to haul cows to market, I would like to put phone poles.’ So what I am discovering is, not solely the outdated vehicles and the cool guys that used to function these items, however they’ve these actually humorous tales about how they choice and make the car work for them. It is actually intelligent, simply to see what individuals got here up with. So mainly, my most important drive is simply, I really feel it is a necessity to report these items.”

Once we spoke to him in 2021, he had 4 episodes within the can and up on the positioning—there are 11 now. If you already know of a cool truck story, particularly if the proprietor continues to be round and might speak about it, contact Bent.

Within the meantime, watch just a few episodes. And begin saving up on your personal refurbished 1947 Dodge Energy Wagon. In case you order now, it’s going to be able to go by Christmas 2025. Possibly sooner.

This story initially appeared in Autoweek in December 2021.

Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford household and spent many hours holding a hassle gentle over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor whereas his father cursed Ford, all its merchandise and everybody who ever labored there. This was his introduction to goal automotive criticism. He began writing for Metropolis Information Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and have become editor of a automobile journal referred to as, creatively, Auto. He determined Auto ought to cowl Components 1, sports activities prototypes and touring vehicles—nobody stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek on the 1989 Frankfurt motor present and has been with us ever since.