Europe Cars & Trucks News

In the first Farm Truck Fever (October ‘06), we ventured across California and into Nevada and Utah to see whether we could still find an old truck sitting in a field or front yard to haul home and create a masterpiece. In our second chapter, The Bug Hits Home, instead of scouring the countryside searching truck by old rusty truck, we went to the Pomona Swap Meet in Pomona, California, where folks from all over the western United States converge to form the largest antique automobile swap meet on the West Coast. In our effort to provide readers with an accurate overview of the event, we attended four occasions before we compiled our story on how to search the Pomona Swap Meet for a project truck.

It’s a good thing that we did decide to attend several dates before we presented this piece,because we learned that you can’t predict how good the next Pomona Swap Meet will bebased on the last one. Of the four meets, June 4 was the best. There were a lot of goodtrucks there, and the prices were reasonable. To cite a few examples, the first one thatcomes to mind was a yellow (original paint) ‘57 Ford F-100 panel truck that had Idahoplates with an asking price of $2,700. What caught our eye about this truck was that itwas fully loaded. Instead of the base 223-inch inline six-cylinder with a three-speed stick,this truck originally came with a 292 V-8 backed with a Fordomatic transmission. Theengine and trans were missing, but the chrome-plated Fordomatic emblem was still on thehood. Its desirable extras included a factory chrome grille and what we would imaginewas rare even back in ‘57, a Custom Cab with matching bucket seats. Next on our list offavorites was a California original ‘62 Chevy shortbed Fleetside with a 283 V-8 engineand a compound four-speed for $2,500 or best offer.

One of the really neat things about the Pomona Swap Meet is that people haul vehicles infrom all over the United States to offer for sale. We ran across one group of guys whowere camped out around a ‘55 Ford fire truck they’d shipped in from Oklahoma. Theshort-wheelbase pumper had less than 8,000 original miles and was in absolutely flawlessmuseum quality for only $7,500.

A bit of advice that we always like to offer to someone who’s in the market for a projecttruck: Buy the absolute best example you can find. Of course, if you wait until you havethe kind of dough necessary to buy the best truck available, you might never get started.As we were leaving the June 4 event, we were stopped by two guys selling a big-window’59 Chevy shortbed Stepside. In the morning they were asking $3,000, but at the prospectof hauling the battered truck 200 miles back to their Central California home, the pricehad dropped to $1,500-it’s likely that anyone with $1,000 cash could have taken ithome.

With the arrival of our fourth consecutive visit to the Pomona Swap Meet, we werediscouraged-the quality of the trucks had progressively worsened, while the askingprices were increasingly higher. While one might take this as an indication that theavailability of old trucks is drying up, which is true to a point, there’s no need to panic.We have been checking out the Pomona Swap Meet scene on and off for the last 20years, and one thing we have learned is that you can’t judge the next one by looking atthe last. CCT

Photo Gallery: Pomona Swap Meet - Custom Classic Trucks Magazine