Should I buy an old truck - '68-72 to be a reliable, primary vehicle?

Asked by bheye3 May 19, 2009 at 05:31 PM

Question type: Shopping & Pricing

I need to buy a replacement for my car. Have wanted an old truck for years and wondering if now is the time to buy one.  I can do basic maintenance like changing the oil but I'm not a mechanic so I need the truck to be reliable (or be reasonable maintainable with help of a local auto shop) to drive to work and back, about 20 miles a day.  Could be 50-100 miles on the occasional days when I need to drive around the Bay Area for meetings.  Would like to find a truck that has basic safety upgrades (shoulder belts) and runs reliably.  Don't need fancy paint job or anything like that.  In general I like the 1968-1972 years for Chevy/Ford/GMC trucks but open to suggestions if other years near those are better for what I'm looking for.  Wondering if anyone with experience can give me some advice.  Maybe the advice is to only get an old truck as my second car. Not what I want to hear but still useful advice.

3 Answers

5

It's always a good time to buy a vintage Ford or Mercury truck. In fact, if you already own one, this is a good time to buy a second one. You can never have too many vintage Ford trucks and I always say, 'there's no such thing as a bad truck, some are just badder than others'. A Chev might be a good truck to consider for the wife; or if you want to take 'er slow......... But yes by all means don't waste another minute thinking about it. Git er done!

16,855

I say go for it, but this will be a 30+ year old vehicle, things will break from time to time so it may be a good idea to have back up transportation since it'll likely need to spend some time every now and again in a shop.

15

i have a 65 ford f100 and i love it..! its my primary transportation right now... my other car is getting work done on it... i say just get it man... you'll love driving to work everyday... you'll like the nice comments and the thumbs up... im 20 yrs old and a lot of old folks like my truck... just know what to look for when your buying it... look for cancer and alway do a full tune up i mean everything as soon as you get the truck... k well hopefully everything works out for you...

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