1972 F100 RHD Conversion

This is a truck we imported for a client a few years ago and a very rare example of a matching numbers 390 S code 4V big block XLT Ranger, a model we never had in Australia and this is a fantastic example. When it came time to change hands the owner came back to us to find it a new home and it was only with me for a day or so before I called another really cool client we are building a crazy 51 Chevy pick up for… I knew his Father’s birthday was approaching as we’d spoken about building something else for him but with our workload we just didn’t have the time. When this truck rolled in I thought it may have been a good fit and snapped a few pictures and sent it to our client Luke, the phone rang pretty quickly and all I remember is it was a Monday and Luke saying to me to say “Benny, my Father started out and built our whole company on a fleet of yellow F100’s”, to which I replied “Doesn’t he have a birthday coming up?”… “yep, this weekend”, Luke replied.

From here it’s one of those really cool stories where we just make shit happen, the F100 is a Birthday present now and I know it means a lot to Luke, he’s on a plane the next day and i’m picking him up from the Coolangatta airport at 8-30pm in the truck before money has even moved so we can use the small amount of time we both have to make this happen, we drive to Coffs Harbour to get some time under our belt and then finish the trip to Sydney for Luke to make an appointment in his afternoon and I flew back to the Gold Coast. 10 hours of driving, lots of interesting conversation, some laughs, we learn the car had a vautex mode between 70-80k’s that is kind of like what I image the Delorean from back to the future felt like at 88 mph except it never spat us out in a different time zone we both just had to hold on, clench everything and then wait for the anticlimax of no time travel when it got through it’s vautex spot and we broke through to 8ok’s and beyond.

All jokes aside and back to the point, this was about Luke’s Father Peter and it was only a few days later that the phone rang on facetime and it was the boys driving the truck together just after Luke and his family had surprised his Dad with the truck for his Birthday…  They were all smiles and looked like they were having the time of their lives, or at least what i’ll always remember as a father and son moment that a lot of people would wish for, turn back the clock for and a memory they will never forget and a moment I felt privileged to share with them.

So a few months down the track and the truck is back with us as it was always intended to be RHD converted and that’s where we are now… balls deep in a left to right hand drive conversion. This particular job we were lucky enough to source a RHD doner cab, it was an old ambulance, solid and other than seventy hundred extra holes in the dash for all there switches it was perfect for us and we had the luxury of cutting out the dash and rhd fire wall section and our boy Adrian has been welding, grinding and linishing these sections and stitching them back into the car better than the factory ever did. So might just look like another job in the pipe work but every one of these cars and every one of these owners have a story and this is Pete’s truck, a gift from his son that will always hold a bit of extra value money can’t buy. Ben Atkinson.

Pictures below of the conversion process…