Final time we noticed Winslow Bent he had began an organization referred to as Legacy Basic Vans in Driggs, Idaho, simply west of his residence in Jackson Gap, Wyoming. At the moment, he was displaying Autoweek his newly refurbished 1947 Dodge Energy Wagon, a truck so utterly and completely restored that we did not even wince after we heard it could price its purchaser $225,000.
Legacy takes vans just like the traditional Energy Wagon, Diamond T, and Studebaker right down to the naked metallic, makes that naked metallic higher, then builds them up from there with new interiors, new wheelbases (the place essential), and new, extra highly effective and dependable crate motors making rather more horsepower than this stuff 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 “multiple yr however lower than two.”
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That was six years in the past. Within the intervening years, Bent has gone considerably Hollywood. Or at the least YouTube. We stumbled throughout his YouTube channel, This Previous Truck, accidentally. 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—okersploosh!—they bought devoured and spat out, their remnants launching right into a area about 30 to 45 ft away. Fairly the shock to seek out that the man with the watermelons was our outdated pal Winslow Bent. He had began this YouTube channel and appeared to be having a good time.
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“Quite a lot of my enterprise is, I’ve to supply loads of automobiles for individuals,” Bent informed us later. “So I spend loads of time driving round locations like Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, and sort of assembly these loopy outdated timers which have cool items of equipment round and, because of this, I’ve simply had this rising record of those outdated timers which have superb items of apparatus.”
Gathering Truckers’ Tales
So he felt an obligation to doc all of it. He noticed his job as a historian, gathering these truckers’ tales whereas there’s nonetheless time to do it.
“They’re dying, you already know, and once they go, the story of those vans and what they did, it goes as effectively.”
So he began filming their tales and importing it to This Previous Truck on YouTube.
He sees the tales of those vans because the story of the Previous West. After the cowboy, the horse, and the wagon, there was the truck, and the truck did the whole lot.
Considered one of Bent’s energy wagons.
“You take a look at post-WWII, the entire improvement that occurred within the Western United States, you’ve got dams, logging, bridges, telephones, energy strains, and all these items, it was the railroad that introduced it out to the central hubs, and from there, it was onto vans. The vans did an unbelievable quantity of labor constructing out the Western U.S.”
Every truck had a selected process and was upfitted for it.
“I used to be simply at SEMA, and I believe one thing like 60 % of individuals will do one thing aftermarket to their truck. And the identical was true again then. So you can get your 1935 Diamond T truck, and you are like, ‘I would like to change this factor so I can use it to haul cows to market, I would like to position phone poles.’ So what I am discovering is, not solely the outdated vans and the cool guys that used to function this stuff, 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 principally, my fundamental drive is simply, I really feel it is a necessity to report this stuff.”
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 remains to be round and may discuss it, contact Bent.
Within the meantime, watch just a few episodes. And begin saving up in your personal refurbished 1947 Dodge Energy Wagon. Should you order now, it will be able to go by Christmas 2025. Perhaps 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 Formulation 1, sports activities prototypes and touring automobiles—nobody stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek on the 1989 Frankfurt motor present and has been with us ever since.
