Old cars are like time capsules. 

You can tell so much about a time period just from climbing inside one. 

And even more if you’re lucky enough to get to drive one down the road.

They are wonderful intersections of history, style, technology and culture. You can actually experience what the cutting-edge technology of their day was. And you can viscerally appreciate their take on comfort, safety and ergonomics.

And for most of the 20^th Century, America was head-over-heels in love with the automobile.

So if someone bought, say, a brand-new Buick Riviera in 1966, there was a good chance that car would be babied and even passed down from one generation to the next.

And, sooner or later, it would wind up in the hands of a serious collector.

It’s not the same for trucks.

If you have even a passing interest in old vehicles, you know that vintage light trucks are rare.

Delivery wagons and sedan delivery panel vans were once the most common light-duty delivery vehicles in North America.

Today, they are among the most sought-after vintage cars out there. Collectors go absolutely wild about them.

That’s because trucks are among the oldest disposable transportation commodities in the modern world.

Trucks are designed from the ground up to spend their entire lives working hard.

And when they reach the end of their lives, they are – in most cases – just about completely used up and worn out.

And the bigger the vehicles get, the rarer they are.

There are always exceptions, of course. But generally speaking, vintage commercial vehicles – especially heavy trucks – are much rarer than passenger cars.

YouTube to the Rescue

But there seems to be a growing appreciation for old trucks.

A lot of this, I think, has to do with the rise of YouTube as a major entertainment platform for millions of Americans.

Despite their rarity on the vintage vehicles circuit, there are a lot of old trucks still out there in the wild.

That’s because due to their size, and the fact that many of them ran until they died, an awful lot of them were simply towed out to a pasture or a clearing in the woods and left to rot.

There are a lot of trucking videos on YouTube. But among my favorites are enthusiasts who go and seek out abandoned old trucks and attempt to bring them back to life.

Two of my YouTube favorites are Jennings Motor Sports and Don’t Be Wily – just down the road from me a bit in Evergreen, Alabama.

Iron City Garage is another good one, as well.

All of those restorers are mechanical geniuses and work wonders getting old engines unstuck and brought back to life. 

And both men are dedicated to saving as many of these old trucks for posterity as they possibly can.

I’ve been writing our popular “Great American Trucks” series for HDT for several years now. These articles started simply as web features and because I love antique vehicles.

Now, we’ve decided to make it a regular series in the print editions of HDT. 

I’ll be traveling to the American Truck Historical Society Show in Springfield, Missouri, next summer. I’ll be looking to talk to collectors and find rare and interesting old trucks to cover in the “Great American Trucks” series.

And I’m hoping to get restorers like Dustin Jennings and Wily Spann to sit down for HDT Talks Trucking interviews soon.

In the meantime – If you have an interesting old truck you’d like to see featured in the pages of HDT, by all means reach out to us and let us know.

The old rigs are out there. And I’d like to play some small part in helping recognize those classic vehicles and honor the vital role they played in helping the United States grow over the past 100-plus years.