There’s something very satisfying about building a custom car or truck with your own two hands. The process exercises every major portion of your brain and allows you to be creative. Bart Morr spent over a decade building his 1953 Ford F-100 to ensure it would be as perfect as he could make it.
Bart has always tinkered with anything mechanical and that drew him into the world of hot rods. If it had an engine, Bart was interested in it when he was young. The Ford brand captured Bart’s heart, so much so that all of his company trucks are Fords, and that led him down the path of buying this 1953 F-100.
The F-100 wasn’t a purchased as-is build for Bart, he put a lot of effort into the truck over the course of many years.
“We got the truck and I wanted to restore it, but it was in rough shape. It took about 12 years to build the truck. The truck got new inner and outer cab corners. I handmade the drip rails for the truck. The front clip had been wrecked and had a lot of Bondo all over. I had to rebuild that and put a lot of new metal in it so it would be right,” Bart says.
When the bodywork was done, Bart had to finally pick out a color for the truck. It was something that he had been mulling over in his mind for just about four years. Well, while Bart was at a Goodguys event he walked past the PPG booth and saw a bike on display. The bike was painted in PPG’s Orange Glow hue, right then Bart knew that was the color for his truck. After the paint was delivered Bart got to work taking care of the final prep and he painted the truck himself.
The F-100’s engine was another item that Bart put a lot of thought into. Instead of putting a modern mill in the truck, Bart had a 284 cubic-inch Flathead Ford built.
“I started talking with Red Matthei, he built a lot of these Flathead engines and we became good friends. When I decided to go with a Flathead he was the only person I was going to have build the engine. 1953 was the last year for the Flathead so it seemed like the right engine for the build. I’m a purist, so if it came with a Ford engine I don’t like to change that. We tweaked the build a bit and stuck a blower on the engine. People have never seen a Flathead before, let alone one with a supercharger on it,” Bart explains.
The parts behind the Flathead are all top-shelf products. Bart added a TEMEC five-speed transmission that transfers power to the Ford 9-inch rearend. The F-100 rolls on a set of stylish Schott Wheels that give it an impressive look. A+M Interiors took care of getting the interior of the truck right and ready for Bart to drive.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find another Ford F-100 that has as many custom touches as this one. Bart really took his time and built a truck that’s packed with slick one-off parts. You can look at the truck and feel all the passion that Bart put into this 12-year build.
