The Pickup Truck Story

1959

A true story about Tommy Letis and his 1956 Ford Pickup

And how Tommy became a legend

Written 3/2011* 3,532 Words

#138 By Howard Yasgar

This is a true story of how I met Tommy Letis, and how he became a legend.

In 1959, I was driving a 1959 Chevrolet Impala Convertible.

My car was what was called a Chevrolet factory muscle car.

In the evenings during the summer months, I was usually hanging around Jimmies restaurant at the Savin Rock amusement park located in West Haven Connecticut.

Jimmies restaurant had a very big parking lot, with parking space for several hundred cars.

Every evening cars would pretty much fill the entire lot, everyone parking neatly in rows.

Jimmies restaurant, located near the ocean, served sea food specialties but the main item they sold was split hotdogs served on a warm hotdog roll, and every day they sold thousands of them.

Every evening people came and stood in line just to place an order with the hot dog cook, his name was Sal and he dished out those split hotdogs with lightning speed.

I usually parked in the back row of the parking lot and so did many of my friends.

Two or three nights a week, a black 1956 Ford pickup truck would show up. The truck would go up and down the rows of parked cars, revving its engine, and popping the clutch, making the front of the truck jump.

The rumors around Jimmies were that the pickup truck had a special high-powered engine in it, and the hood was always chained shut.

No one knew who owned the truck, but it was said that the pickup truck had never lost a race.

On day, the truck didn’t show up anymore, and its absence became a topic of conversation among everyone parked in the back row.

Then one day the truck suddenly appeared but something was very different, there was no revving of the engine and no popping of the clutch, it just drove in between a few rows of parked cars and then drove off and disappeared.

After a few weeks, the truck was all but forgotten about.

About two weeks after wee98ng the truck, as usual I was parked in the back row of Jimmies parking lot.

It was a nice warm evening and I had the convertible top down.

I was sitting in the passenger seat. My engine was running and the air conditioning was on, and I was

Just waiting for my friends to show up.

I hardly noticed him, but suddenly there was someone standing next to my driver’s side door.

I looked over and saw a fellow studying the interior of my car.

He looked to be about 5 foot 6 inches tall, with sandy blond hair, and a friendly cherubic face.

He had on a flannel long sleeve work shirt and green work pants and he was twirling a stubby small cigar in his mouth.

He took the cigar from his mouth and with a smile and a kind of chuckle he said, “How does it go”, it goes OK, I replied.

“How’s that four speed Corvette transmission working out, he asked”,

It’s OK, I replied.

He said, “Does your engine have the tri-power package?”

Yes, it does, I said,

He went on “Does that Chevrolet 348 cubic inch engine have any punch?” he asked.

Yes, I replied but not as much punch as I would have liked.

He said, “I had heard that Chevrolet was building just a few of these factory hot rods, but I never actually saw one up so close until now.

His face was smiling, and he said, “I want you to know I think it’s really a sharp looking car,”

That was the defining moment when I knew that I liked this guy.

Now, still to this day I still don’t know why I did it, but I asked him if he wanted to take the car for a drive, I had never offered that to anyone before.

That was when the magic happened, it was how I met Tommy Letis.

Tommy introduced himself, as he got in the car and he took it for a spin up on the Connecticut turnpike.

When we returned to Jimmies parking lot, I asked Tommy what kind of car he was driving, and he said, “I’m just driving a Ford pickup truck,” and he pointed across the street.

I looked where he had pointed, it was where the shiny black 1956 Ford pickup truck was parked hidden in the shadows.

We walked across the street and I got into Tommy’s pickup truck, and he drove it up to the

Connecticut turnpike.

Once we were on the turnpike, Tommy proceeded to step on the gas.

I was startled, it was like I was in a jet aircraft, I was thrown back in the pickup trucks seat, and it just took my breath away. I had never experienced a force like that before.

Tommy then backed off the gas, and the truck slowed down, and all I could say was, wow.

Then Tommy said, “sorry, but I can't really open it up for you, as I’m having a little problem right now with the Connecticut State Police, and they have their eye out for me.

I thought, my goodness, the pickup truck wasn’t even up to full speed and he had already made it accelerate faster than I had ever seen anyone do before.

By the time we returned to Jimmies parking lot, I think I could say Tommy and I were pretty good friends.

I gave Tommy the directions to come visit me at the gas station where I was working in the evenings, he promised that he would come and visit me, and he did, then he came there every night that I worked, just to talk and keep me company.

As Tommy and I became better friends, he eventually came to my home and met my family, and I

started going to his house.

But I soon became very jealous of the way Tommy lived.

His home life was also like nothing I had ever seen before, he lived with his mom and Dad, his brother

and his grandfather.

They all lived on what was once their family egg farm.

The chickens were now long gone. But there was still a large barn, and that’s where Tommy parked the pickup truck every night.

Tommy and I were similar in age, but Tommy already had his own dump truck business, and he was earning in a few weeks what I probably earned in an entire year.

In the summer evenings, Tommy and I would always go out cruising in that 1956 Ford truck.

Tommy was constantly looking for cars to race.

Tommy would drive to all the popular hang outs, they were places like Jimmies, where all the guys with hot rod cars hung out.

Tommy always had a simple routine; he would drive right into the restaurant parking lots and start revving up the pickup truck’s engine. That engine roar always got everyone's attention real fast.

Then Tommy would roll down his driver’s ndow and offer to race anyone.

However, after many months there were less takers, because the pickup trucks reputation had already preceded it.

Nevertheless, every evening Tommy always seemed to find someone new to race, someone that thought they could beat him.

But inevitably, they all always lost, Tommy’s pickup would just pull away from them, like they were standing still.

Tommy would always start each race from a rolling start, and no one seemed to mind it.

However, sometimes a competitor would get the jump on Tommy, but then the pickup truck would quickly pass by them by, like they were standing still.

After watching Tommy win so many races. I would roll down my passenger side window as we raced, and I would wave goodbye to the competitors as Tommy accelerated away from them.

It was just an amazing thing to feel, being in a truck that accelerated so fast.

During every race I could always look out the rear window and see the competitor falling behind us.

It was a special feeling to be in that truck with Tommy, it was just like we were in a rocket ship.

Unfortunately, as the reputation of Tommy’s pickup truck grew, the State and local police would immediately recognize him wherever he went.

My trying to pry the whole story out of Tommy, as to how the truck came to be, was no easy task, but I questioned Tommy constantly about it, I was curious.

Tommy said that it all began in 1956, when he bought a brand new 1956 Ford 6-cylinder pickup truck.

At that time, he had a good friend that lived nearby named Billy.

Billy was not only Tommy’s good friend, but he was also a very good mechanic.

One day, Tommy suggested to Billy, that he wanted to make the Ford truck into a “Street hot rod”.

Tommy knew that the local junk yards were starting to get in late model cars that had powerful V8 overhead valve engines available.

So, Tommy started calling around to all the junk yards to see what was available.

Eventually he located an auto wrecker that had a wrecked 1957 Pontiac with a V8 overhead valve engine in it.

The only problem was, at the time, in 1959, Pontiac V8 engines were not considered worthy of building up into racing engines, and very few companies sold any parts to soup them up.

Both Tommy and Billy took that as a challenge, and Tommy bought the 1957 Pontiac V8 engine.

Then Tommy and Billy did everything they could to soup it up.

They bored the engines cylinders out larger, and they located special racing pistons.

Then they shaved down and ported and relieved the cylinder heads, and had the entire engine completely balanced by a speed shop.

Tommy called the Howard Camshaft Company, they designed camshafts for his engines, and he

told them that he wanted them to design the most radical, experimental camshaft that they could come up with for his Pontiac engine, and he told them that cost was no object.

The Howard Camshaft company designed a special camshaft for Tommy’s engine, and it cost him close to $400.00, which at the time was a huge sum of money.

Once they completed the engine, they then had to adapt it to the 1956 Ford’s three speed manual transmission.

They eventually got the modified Pontiac engine to fit in the truck, and surprisingly enough, it started up and it ran.

However, due to the experimental racing camshaft they had installed, it made the engines RPM difficult to control.

Billy played around with the six carburetors on the engine, and he determined that they were just not getting enough fuel.

They installed a high-volume Stewart Warner electric fuel pump, it delivered more fuel, and this was what allowed them to start driving the truck on the streets.

To try it out the first time, Billy got behind the steering wheel, and that's when they found out that they had somehow accidentally had a rocket ship.

After that, Tommy and Billy started to make the rounds of all the hamburger and hotdog joints, including Jimmies, and they started taking on anyone that wanted to race them.

So, it was while doing this, they eventually ended up driving through Jimmy’s Restaurant parking lot where I used to see them

Tommy told me that he didn’t mind letting Billy do most of the driving.

One evening they were on the Connecticut Turnpike racing another car.

As Tommy’s pickup pulled away from the competitor, they noticed a State Police Trooper was behind them.

The Connecticut Trooper was trying his best, but he couldn’t catch up with the pickup truck.

Billy, determined to escape the police, took off down an exit ramp at over 110 miles per hour.

Tommy said he thought that at that speed, they could never negotiate the turn in the ramp and he was bracing himself for a horrible crash.

But somehow the truck stuck to the road and that evening they eluded the police, and they got to Tommy's home and the truck was safely hidden in the barn.

That evening the police came. Seems they had taken Tommy's license tag number.

They asked if Tommy had been driving the truck that night, and he said no. (That was true, it was Billy that was driving).

The police asked to see the truck, it was in the barn and the radiator was still hot and steaming so Tommy was arrested.

Now, being arrested was no concern to Tommy, but possibly losing his driver’s license was a big concern.

Tommy knew that if he was ever convicted, he would lose his license and lose his dump truck business.

So, at the Police station, Tommy said he was not driving the truck, he said that it was Billy.

However, Billy, when he was arrested, said that it was Tommy that was driving.

I don't exactly know what happened at that point as Tommy never seem to want to talk about it, but he didn't lose his license and he never spoke to Billy again.

That was the whole story behind that black 1956 Ford Pickup truck, that is, until I eventually met Tommy at Jimmy’s restaurant.

After a year or so of my going street racing with Tommy, he began to get antsy about wanting to make the truck go faster, he wanted to be able to race from a standing start rather than a rolling start.

Personally, I didn’t think the pickup needed to be any faster, but Tommy kept asking me what I thought he should do.

Finally, the only suggestion I had for Tommy was to lock up the differential on the truck.

This would make both rear tires turn at the same time and give the truck more traction on the takeoff.

If we locked up the truck’s differential, Tommy would be able to race from a standing start, which is what he always wanted to do.

But I warned Tommy, by locking the differential, there were some sacrifices that had to be made, because both rear tires now turned at the same speed, and this would make going around corners difficult and put a lot of stress on the gears in the differential.

“Let’s do it, Tommy said, who gives a shit about turning corners”.

So that night we jacked up the truck in the barn and I slid under and opened up the rear differential case, and with an electric arc welder, I carefully welded the spider gears together.

Now both rear tires on the truck both turned together at the same time.

As soon as I was done, Tommy was anxious to try it out, so we tried to push the truck out of the barn by hand, but now by locking the differential, making both the tires turn out of the barn was now almost impossible.

However, once the truck was on solid pavement, Tommy tried spinning the rear wheels from a standing start and they now grabbed the ground perfectly.

Now, that pickup truck didn’t lose even one moment on the take-off, it had one hundred percent perfect traction, and Tommy could now race anyone from a standing start.

Tommy said he loved it, he said the truck was now perfect.

However, every time we took a corner, the truck’s tires would make loud chirping noises.

It bothered me, but Tommy said he could care less about hearing the chirping noise coming from the tires.

The fact that Tommy could now race from a standing start was what he always wanted, and I had to agree with him that there was no question that the truck was now much faster on the takeoff then before.

For the next several weeks, we continued going out in the evenings looking for anyone to race, and the truck always performed perfectly.

One evening, we were driving by the Yale Bowl in New Haven, and we stopped at a red light.

Suddenly, a black 1957 Chevrolet coupe pulled up next to us.

Before the light turned green, the driver let out his clutch, making the 1957 Chevy lurch forward, then he punched it again, making the front end of that Chevy lift.

The red light changed to green, and Tommy let out the clutch.

The truck lurched forward and we heard a loud banging and crunching noise coming from the rear differential.

It was awful, and the truck stopped stone cold dead in the street.

The power from the engine was no longer turning the rear wheels.

We both knew immediately what happened, the rear differential had destroyed itself, all the teeth on the gears were gone.

So, as we got out of the truck, the black 1957 Chevy backed up to us, and he rolled down his window asking. “Do you guys need a lift?”

We did need a lift and he drove us all the way to Tommy's house, in North Haven.

Once there, we got in my 1959 Chevy, and with a tow chain we pulled the truck home and into the barn.

After that happened, things began changing, time was flying and our lives were changing, we were both getting older, and girls were becoming interesting, so the truck just sat there.

Whenever I brought up the topic of the 1956 Ford pickup truck, Tommy would always say, “Sure we can get it running again”, but we never had time and we never did.

That truck just sat in the barn behind their house in North Haven.

Eventually Tommy got married, and he built a new house across the street from his father’s house,

I left for Army, then in 1963, I also got married, and I moved to Florida.

Tommy and I sort of lost touch.

But then in 1969 I called up Tommy from Miami, I told him I had gotten involved with a friend and we were removing the railroad from Haiti.

I needed Tommy’s advice regarding an old Mack truck my friend was rebuilding in Haiti.

We ended our conversation with me asking him about the 1956 Ford pickup truck, and Tommy said it was still sitting there in the barn.

Again around 2001, I got the idea that I wanted to call Tommy up again, and this time when I called, he was really surprised to hear from me.

Tommy said he was delighted for me to have found him again. He said he was always thinking about going to Haiti to look for me, somehow Tommy had gotten the idea I lived there.

I told Tommy I lived in Miami.

Tommy said that he and his girlfriend Sandy, were in Florida every year for NASCAR races in Daytona, and they always came to Miami, to visit friends.

As expected, we talked about the 1956 Ford pickup truck.

I could see that Tommy got wistful every time the conversation came up, and it was hard to get him to talk about it.

It appears that somewhere down the line he needed more room in the barn and he sold the pickup truck, but he now regretted doing it.

Sandy told me that sometime in 2009, she located the original 1956 Ford pickup trucks registration papers, so they went to a junk yard that had a computer system that traces registrations.

However, looking on the computer turned out to be a dead end.

Sandy said that Tommy told her that if they could ever find the present owner, he would buy the truck back again.

Then just by chance, at a car show in Essex Connecticut, they bumped into a fellow, who said that he knew someone in “Deep River Connecticut” that collected black 1956 Ford pickup trucks.

So off, to Deep River Connecticut, Tommy and Sandy went.

They eventually found the fellows house with two 1956 black Mercury (Canadian Ford) pickup trucks, parked in a garage, and there was also a black Ford pickup truck parked in front of the house.

Tommy looked into the window of the pickup truck in front of the house, and laying inside, on the seat were two inner red door panels, from Tommy’s original 1956 Ford Truck.

Tommy recognized those door panels immediately, but as no one was home, they could only leave a note.

That evening they received a call from the truck’s owner.

Yes, he said he had once owned Tommy’s pickup truck, but he gave it to his brother who lived in Vermont, and he thinks his brother junked it.

As of March 2011, Sandy says that Tommy still thinks the truck may be in Vermont, and if I know

Sandy and Tommy, we haven't heard the end of this story yet.

In May of 2016, I received a call from Sandy, It appears that they had just attended a car show at a local Dairy Queen, and a fellow there thought he recognized Tommy.

He said, “Aren’t you the guy that had that super-fast 1956 Ford pickup truck back in 1959”. Tommy said, “Yes”.

The fellow said, “Man, you are a legend around here, can I stand next to you?”.