A few years back I was contacted be a fellow simply known then as Mike. He told me a story of a truck that his father had owned and built and rebuilt numerous times over the years.
The story starts in about 1954-55 when they had opened a Fina Garage, also imported and sold Messerschmidt Cars, ran a mail order ( first one in Canada) hot rod speed parts shop in
Simcoe Ontario named Grays Powerhouse. They needed a truck to do shop stuff, Mikes dad Gray decided that a section job would make it stand out amongst the usual shop trucks around
at that time. It occasionally had a different powerplant installed so I am led to believe, everything from a stock Flathead to a Nitro burning Austin 4 cylinder, a side note to this was that his dad
Gray also ran the first nitro burning dragsters in Canada( very interesting man) also was instrumental in the birth of the Kohler Speedway,later to be renamed the Cayuga Speedway, now
Toronto Motorsports Park. Anyway, going back, Mike got a hold of me online as he was initially looking to have someone build him a modern street rod out of pops old truck. When I got a sense
that it had so much awesome Ontario rodding history, I basically told him he would be a jerk to do that to a truck that had survived this long intact.. After a couple days of thinking, Mike decided that
yes,this was indeed a good intentioned blast I had given him ( lol) and we fast became pals.. Fast forward to this year, Mike contacted me after having the truck for sale and getting sick of the
naysayers etc.. straight up told me that we were making a deal.. Here is the truck today, good friends Neil Candy and Nick Semeniuk helped me go to western Ontario to retrieve and bring back to
the Mother Ship for assessment and to start learning more history before tearing in to it and missing any details.. I will probably not be moving along at a great pace,life still must happen, my family
has come accustomed to eating and everyone demands that I still work every day since the Lottery folks have not shown up at the door yet!If you know anything helpful,have original photos,please
Great story, Great history, I love those finds and resurections and good for you Chris.. Do you think you still be able to drive by the time you get it finished..:)...
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There is no elevator to success — you have to take the stairs.
