When I was in high school in Minnesota, I had a friend, Doug. His dad was a bricklayer. He never wanted big, new, expensive trucks. He wanted older trucks that he didn’t mind beating the shit out of, and that had lower bed heights. Afterall, bricks are freaking heavy.
At some point, he had a late 1970s Ford F-250 like the one above, although it was blue and not as nice. It was a single-cab, two-wheel drive, and had a big 460 cid V-8 in it. It was all stock and had that ultra-restrictive single exhaust that sounded like a giant hissing cat when you mashed the throttle. Despite the big engine, the truck wasn’t fast, but it would do hellacious one-wheel burnouts and could take a beating. It was the perfect bricklayer’s truck. It was also a great truck for high schoolers to flog. We may or may not have filmed it doing a burnout as the introduction to the 1996 Senior Prom video we filmed. (The burnout section never made the final version.)
One day, Doug and I were in his dad’s truck on the Interstate outside of St. Paul, and he said, “Let’s see how fast this thing will go.”
From 60 MPH, he put his foot to the floor and gave the old F-250 everything it had. Acceleration wasn’t exactly brisk, but the speed kept increasing. The faster we went, the louder the wind noise got. After all, this thing has the aerodynamics of a boxcar. But in this heap of a truck, it felt like we were about to break the sound barrier. The wind noise was akin to being inside a tin shack during an F5 tornado.
While sitting on the bench seat, complete with a Mexican blanket over the dilapidated upholstery—the Minnesota prairie landscape passing by at what felt like warp speed, and in a cab that sounded like we were existing inside a gas-powered Hoover vacuum cleaner—I yelled over to Doug, “HOW FAST ARE WE GOING?”
Doug glances down at the speedometer, which in those days maxed out at 85 MPH, with the letters “MPH” located in the speedometer’s lower center. He yells out, “WE’RE GOING ‘H’!”
The speedometer’s needle had swung past 85 and was now touching the H on the “MPH” portion of the gauge.
He backed off the gas before we burned up upon reentry.
Chrankshaft Chronicles is a regular series of short stories based on our experiences, travels, and adventures. Like what you’re reading? Let us know in the comments.
Andy Lilienthal is an award-winning writer and has written professionally since 1999. He has over 13 years in the automotive aftermarket working at companies including Warn Industries, Bushwacker, and Lund International. Editorial works include writing and photography for off-road print magazines, to new-car reviews online. He’s a photographer with images in multiple magazines, blog sites, and The New York Times.
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