Ford, we are twelve; oh, make us one,
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Like drops within the Social River;
Oh, make us now together run
As swiftly as thy shining Flivver.
My daughter, E., is now 12. A few weeks ago, she was watching a show on TV and part of the plot hook was that it is OK for girls to like cars. So already, as that kind of social science geek, I’m thinking about gender stereotypes, media, and how stories are told, resisted, and so on. Then, she turns to me:
Her: “Dad, can we build a car?”
Me: “Do you mean like a toy car, like on the show, or like a full-sized drive-to-town car?”
Her: “A full-sized car.”
My mental gears are rusty, and I was thinking about other stuff, but now she has my complete attention.
Me: “Well, technically yes. I mean, we would both have a lot to learn, but it is certainly possible to build a car from scratch. It might be easier to start with something simpler, like rebuilding something that is in bad shape.”
Her: “I want to do that.”
Some time later, I’ve put put a request on the Facebook to see if anyone has an old busted vehicle. And I’m stalking the cheap vehicles ads on Facebook and Craigslist. It doesn’t take too long for one of my oldest friends, M., to chime in: he has his dad’s old truck, and while it sort of runs, it has issues.
The truck is a 1974 Ford F-100, made in Kentucky. The engine is a 240 Inline 6-Cylinder that was rebuilt not too long ago. I drove it into the shop under its own power.
I’ll be posting photos here and on my Instagram feed as this project continues to evolve.
