MY FAVORITE RIDE
50 years in the making, Baker finishes restoring '40 Ford
DUANE CROSS / MCO
Accessories for the 1940 Ford pickup included whitewalls, a side mount spare, a 12-volt system, an engine oiler, an oil filter, wood stake sides, and a locking gas cap.
Doyle Baker is the epitome of a “car guy.” He still owns the 1969 Pontiac GTO he bought new (104,000 original miles) and has finished a 50-year restoration of a 1940 Ford.
Yes, 50 years.
“I was looking for something to fool with,” he said. Baker found the Ford in 1971 and began rebuilding the truck from the ground up.
The Flathead V8 engine was sent to Chattanooga, and the mechanic stripped off the body. Eventually, the engine was bolted back to the frame – and that’s as far as the restoration went for five decades.
The rebuild was put on hold because the guy was busy with other jobs. A year later, Baker went to the shop and loaded the parts into 5-gallon buckets before rolling the frame – and engine – onto a rollback.
“I give up on it if you want to know the truth,” Baker said. “When it’s sitting in a barn in 5-gallon buckets after you tried that hard to get it fixed, it had to lay a while before I got the courage to go back.
“I kept it in the barn since 1972,” he said, “until three years ago. I drug it back out and started over.”
Remember 1971? It was the year All in the Family debuted on CBS. Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Fla. Game 4 of the World Series was the first MLB postseason game played at night – a 4-3 win for Pittsburgh against Baltimore. ... A lot has changed since then.
But for Baker, the ’40 Ford was a constant. In 2021, he decided to put the pieces together.
The rebuild was more straightforward because “the way they made it, you can work on them,” he said. “Everything now is computers. You never know when one’s going to go bad. [The ’40 Ford] is pretty simple: It fires, gets gas, and runs.”
At local car shows, the Ford is an eye-catcher. “I went to two in Lynchburg and one in Winchester,” Baker said. “It draws a crowd and holds attention because it’s rare. You seldom see a ’40 Ford pickup.”
Baker noted with a chuckle that getting replacement parts for the truck was not too difficult: “Well, not as bad as it was to turn loose enough money to get ’em.”
DUANE CROSS / MCO
Doyle Baker – this maverick has the need for speed. He’s mashed the gas at Talladega and burned enough rubber to get on Goodyear’s Christmas card list.
