Ford pickup (St. Helena, California)

We spotted the pictured vehicle in St. Helena, California (northern end of Napa Valley) during our May trip. It sits outside a very interesting (plant) nursery - something of a complementary business to the Napa Valley wineries. The nursery came complete with live chickens, interesting plants, beautiful restaurant, wine tastings, etc.

The proprietor thought the vehicle was a 1948 model. It's an F-2.

This of course brought to mind the 1949 Ford pickup in which we traveled so often - one of the first vehicles I remember (along with a 1952 Dodge Meadowbrook, if I'm recalling the model of our then-family car correctly).

This was the vehicle EMG would come home in after a day of farming, so that was exciting. Sometimes we would meet him at the end of the lane, and ride in the back of the pickup down the lane. That might not fly under current "safety" notions (as CCG learned while sitting on the end-gate at start-up).

In our early forays into helping EMG with shelling or other farm work, this typically was the vehicle in which we traveled. SEG always by the window (seniority rules were quite strict; I was too young to realize who promulgated seniority rules, and why). This resulted in me experiencing a fair amount of knee-knocking as EMG operated the gear shift mechanism (just look at the position of the shift mechanism).


I'm always surprised at how simple and uncluttered these vehicles appear. I don't recall that our truck had an after-market turn signal (as this one does).

I don't recall when this pickup was phased out of regular use. I believe we started using station wagons (instead of a pickup) as the primary utility vehicle for the remainder of my ag service.