the windshield back, sectioned the cab 1 1/2 inches, sectioned and pancaked the hood requiring special custom trim/vents, sectioned the running boards 1 1/2 inches to level out the bottoms, fit ‘49 Plymouth bumpers, and then Matt smoothed out everything. He had Marty Leslie lay down the Triple Nickle paint in trade for some chassis work. The interior was redone by Matt this time around including recovering the ’89 Honda seats, the modified B&M shifter, New Vintage gauges, and he wired the pickup using a Highway 22 kit from American Autowire. I was passionate about Matt’s ’51 Ford F1 the
moment I saw it. The Ford F1 is an interesting pickup and they look great slammed but are hard to modify (I recently had to tell friends how ugly their ’46 is after heavy modification because it is hideous). I loved the sliced and diced ’51 and once I met Matt, I dug on the pickup’s whole homebuilt and have fun ethos. It wasn’t until after I started researching the article that I realized that I personally had been tak- ing pictures of Matt and misspelling his last name in various ways for 25 years. Cool pickup, cool rodder, cool NSRA history, tons of cool memories, just about everything NSRA wishes for all our members. AUGUST 2026 65
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