I fell in love with 4 wheel drive when I was a teenager. Our neighbour used to take me coyote hunting in the farming areas of northern Alberta .His name was Jim Platz and he had a 1961 Dodge Power Wagon civilian truck type. That truck could go anywhere in the snow covered fields, through the ditches and bush to me as a young kid it was the ultimate toy. A 4x4. was what I wanted! In those days good used 4x4's were non-existent so finally I saved up enough money for a down payment in 1967. You had to factory order them as no dealer kept them in stock.
The Green and White 1967 3/4 ton arrived on my birthday in May. When I went to University I could not keep up the payments $107 per month, so I took it out to the farm where they used it up to 1980 ,and then parked it out by the shop where it sat for the next 32 years, in 2012 we had it restored to original,and that's what you see today with the original warranty book and service card in my name.
A couple of years ago someone was looking at the collection and told me about a 1966 Mercury 250 4x4 in northern Saskatchewan bought new by a farmer Henry Gartner from Craik SK in 1966, his son in law Robert Walker had restored it but had lost interest in keeping it so I bought it, restored the interior removed the oversized tires and fender flares put original wheels .
The 1966 and 1967 are a marched pair with the identical running gear, 352 V-8 engines Dana Spicer front and rear ends NP 435 4 speed transmissions Spicer front hubs and Dana model 24 transfercase. The bodies are completely different , Ford built the 1966 body for 6 years from 1961 and the 1967 for 6 years until 1972. These trucks are extermely rare as Mercury Trucks were only sold in Canada up to the spring of 1968 all dealers sold Ford trucks after that, and trucks with 4 wheel drive was only about 1% of total Ford truck production in those years which makes these trucks approximately 1 of 100 .
The last 3 photos are original taken in 1967, I found them in an old photo album just recently.
Brian Beard is owner of both trucks!
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