Prewar pickup trucks just have a certain charm to them.  Their form-over-function designs provided them with honest good looks and a wholesome simplicity that we just don’t see in modern trucks.  They are a reminder of how complex and hectic we have made even our working lives.  If you long for a return to more honest times, at least on the weekends, then you might want to look at this 1935 Ford pickup for sale on Craigslist in Oakhurst, California.  Mostly complete and restorable, this old Ford is looking for someone to bring it back to its glory.  Is the $9,000 price market correct for this truck?  Thanks to Gunter K. for this crusty Ford find!

There is much to learn when comparing this truck to a 2022 F-150.  Both are a product of their times.  You could only get a V-8 with the 1935 model (although a four-cylinder special order model pops up now and again in the Early Ford V-8 Club’s magazine), while the 2024 model is available with five different engine choices plus an all-electric model.  The 1935 version of the Flathead V-8 put out 85 horsepower.  The 2024 Coyote V-8 in the F-150 is rated for 400 horsepower.  A three-speed transmission with possibly a specially ordered Columbia two-speed rear end was all you had in 1935, while 2024 F-150s all come with 10-speed automatics.

While the differences in horsepower and how it gets to the ground make the later F-150 incredibly faster and more capable than its geriatric predecessor, it is in towing capacity and maximum payload that the F-150 puts up numbers that a 1930s era over the road truck would be envious of.  A 2024 F-150 can tow, based on how it was optioned out, anywhere from 5,000 to 13,500 lbs. and the payload capacity ranges from 1,400-2,445 lbs.  There are no published ratings for a 1935 Ford pickup, but the payload rating was somewhere around 500 pounds, and towing not much more.  Your biggest consideration in carrying a heavy load in a Ford truck of this vintage would be the mechanical brakes.

So why am I making these comparisons?  The role of a truck was very different back then due to the times and the technology.  It would be hard to effectively use a truck like this today in business.  The payload is small in both weight and size, the speed in which it operates would limit it to secondary roads, and the technology is almost stone age in comparison to what we consider the bare minimum today.  Looking at the progress between 1935 and 2024 in trucks not only tells us how far trucks have come, it also reveals a lot about how much our society has changed.  Not all of that change was for the better.  Not all of that change is bad.

So if you want to step away from what we have become and take a trip back to a less stressful and complex time, taking on a project like this 1935 Ford pickup is a good idea.  The seller tells us that it is a “fully solid” truck.  There is rust in the lower rocker panels and there are some missing parts and pieces if the photos are any evidence.  This is not a truck that you can clean the gas tank and carburetor and have back on the road in a day or two.  This is a restoration candidate, but it is one with a lot of promise.

The engine, which is from a later Ford, is currently locked up.  If you weren’t worried about originality, there are numerous running Flatheads out there.  As for originality, this is one of the few unrestored Fords of this era that still retains its original mechanical brakes.  Most were converted to hydraulic brakes as soon as possible.  They aren’t as horrible as people make them out to be, but mechanical brakes do have their limitations.

Perhaps the best part about restoring this truck would be that properly restored prewar trucks sell for prices far outside your expectations.  While they were usually one of the cheapest forms of transportation back in their day, that is certainly not the case now.  Perhaps it is more than just their good looks.  It may be that all of us want to, in some way, go back to what we think was a simpler time.