Hello all,

First time poster and I am looking at building a truck from the front clip of a 1954 Fargo Medium duty truck that I have.

We purchased the front clip mostly for the engine that was in it, a 1959 354 Hemi from a truck, to put in my brother's 1956 Dodge 'K' 2.5 ton Truck, as his original 331 hemi needed a rebuild and his heads ended up being cracked etc. etc. It is hard to get your hands on an original truck hemi for restoration in case you are unaware.

So this parts truck we bought was an original '54 that should have had a flathead but had this hemi. It had also been cut in two right behind the cab by the previous owner because he wanted the bed to use, so with a non-original engine and essentially only a cab left, I've been left in the perfect scenario to build whatever I want from the cab. I am not normally a fan of hot rodding/ rat rodding, I'm a much bigger fan of original and restored-to-original vehicles as you may have been able to tell already. Not only does it seem that a lot of hot rods destroy perfectly salvageable, and sometimes uncommon, vehicles (and parts! i.e. truck hemis!), but I figure that when they were built, they had a team of engineers and stylists working for years to produce a car- make it run right and maybe more importantly, make it look good. I've seen a lot of rat rods that were maybe less than carefully thought out and look pretty ugly in my opinion... Maybe some of you agree with me, or maybe I'm by myself on this one!

SO I've passed my first qualm, there isn't much left of the truck to return to original, picture attached. I'm trying to get over my second problem too by putting a lot of thought into how it will look and run when finished. The main concept is a ~1.5-2 ton 4x4 powered by a Cummins turbo diesel and a 6 speed transmission. The goal is to make something that looks like it could have been factory. Retain the bench seat, original style wheels, factory style paint job etc. flatbed with a hitch and provisions for a gooseneck/ fifth wheel. For those of you interested in a little history, to make it look similar to a 1956 Dodge HW (H= 2 ton, W= 4 wheel drive), which was the first 'conventionally' styled factory 4x4 Dodge truck, picture attached.

I'll be posting soon in the legal section for advice on ownership and registration.

Dean