A FORMER race car driver has built a one-of-a-kind vehicle never before seen on the roads - a 1952 Ford pick-up truck that drives BACKWARDS. Davey Hamilton, from Indianapolis, built his creation after being inspired by a former racing driver pal who owned a truck – so Davey decided to get one but give it a unique spin all of its own. Incredibly Davey’s backwards driving truck can reach speeds of up to 85mph, amazing other road users everywhere it goes.
Video Credits:
Videographer / director: Dan Wagner
Producer: Kalina Van Vlack, Kim Nguyen
Editor: Alex Lubetkin
Video Credits:
Videographer / director: Dan Wagner
Producer: Kalina Van Vlack, Kim Nguyen
Editor: Alex Lubetkin
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00Number one, it's attention getter. Number two, it's definitely a fan favorite. Number
00:11three, it was a lot of work.
00:15Former car race driver Davey Hamilton has swapped the fast lane to build a one-of-a-kind 1952
00:21Ford backwards pickup truck.
00:23I'm Davey Hamilton and this is my 1952.
00:30Ford backwards truck.
00:37So a friend of mine up in Maine, who is a former racer, I went to his place and he actually
00:43had a truck that was somewhat like this, but I took it another step farther.
00:54So a lot of the trucks, older trucks have really small back windows. They don't have the wide ones.
00:58They're still little and I'm from Indianapolis. So I looked all around the Indy area, couldn't
01:03find a truck with a big back window. I happened to find this truck like three miles from my
01:07father's house. He sent me some pictures, I go, perfect, get it.
01:11As far as the body, it's all the original body. The frame's original. The steering column and the
01:16pedals, it's all still original. And then we had to put the lights on, obviously,
01:20go in the wrong direction. I didn't know what to do for a bed cover, so we figured to keep it
01:26rustic looking. We just use this piece of plywood. But then you can see inside, it's just a 350
01:35Chevy engine with a turbo 350 transmission. Yeah. One key thing was a big radiator because the air going
01:45through the tailgate wasn't that good. So you can see we had to cut a hole for your feet to go inside
01:50the bed. So we had to seal all this up, make sure no water and stuff came in inside the truck.
01:55We actually took seats out of a Clarisse razor. We just had them, right? But the dash, we built it.
02:00My dad actually built and broke his dash out of aluminum, got all the gauges in it.
02:04I always get mixed up on which door to get in. But obviously, this is the door. The right door
02:12is the one you're supposed to get in all the time. So I just took a racing fuel cell and put it in for
02:17a gas tank. Fenders, brake lights, tail lights, blinkers. It has to have windshield wipers. It passed,
02:28it has everything that's required to be having a car. All the body mounts had to be turned around and
02:33switched. So getting it to where it looked proper and like it was a regular truck per se, like it
02:40looks pretty good. It looks like it's supposed to go forward. And so it took some time to get everything
02:44leveled out and make sure that it was mounted properly so it didn't bounce around. This backwards
02:50vehicle is also easy to maneuver once you get the hang of it. It's easy to drive. It's got good brakes and
02:58all that that goes with it. But it's still, in the day, still a 1952 Ford truck, right? So,
03:06but it's fun. It's not too aerodynamic with the cab backwards. I'll tell you that. The front end is so
03:12long. It's the bed and you're looking over the bed. So it takes a little bit to learn where you're at.
03:16And as you can tell, it's a little tighter, right? The cockpit's not quite as much room as if you turned
03:21around. I had it up to 85. I really don't want to go any faster. It goes pretty good at that speed. It
03:26doesn't handle great. I definitely don't want to put it on the racetrack. It's really a 52 Ford truck.
03:36I don't even know how to value that thing, right? I don't have any idea what it's worth to somebody,
03:40but it's unique. I've been offered some money for it, but I wasn't ready to sell.
03:45Unsurprisingly, this unique vehicle gets a lot of attention out on the road.
03:49You know, the guys at the bar over there.
03:56People get a kick out of it. That's always fun, right? When somebody,
03:59when it makes somebody's day, it's probably cool. People have told me that. I go, you know what,
04:02I haven't, I haven't smiled like this for a long time. So that's pretty cool, right?
04:07That's the kind of reactions you get, right? People just like this gentleman and, you know,
04:24they want to stop you. They want to talk to you. They want to, you know, look it over and ask questions.
04:29So you definitely don't want to be in a hurry. The town I'm from, everybody talks about it,
04:34but it still gets reactions. There's new people that see it every time we take it out,
04:37and it's definitely a crowd getter. I haven't been pulled over yet. I've kind of been waiting.
04:42I actually passed a cop once. He waved and off he went, like most people.
04:47You know where in the rules it says which way the body's supposed to go.
04:50Yeah, it doesn't matter.