“My buddy rode with me the other day. He said, ‘Man, you’re like a rock star in this thing, huh?’” Mike recalled. “Everybody waves at you. You fill up with fuel and they want to talk about the truck. Lots of positive reactions.”
While it’s not quite a daily driver, it’s pretty dang close. Mike works as a dirt contractor in Tatum, N.M., and will often take the Power Wagon with him out onto dirt roads to perform estimates on jobs in oil fields or elsewhere. It’s reliable enough that Mike mentioned he would take it on a road trip all the way up to Oregon if he needed to. A tall order for a 62-year-old truck, though not surprising for a build once used as fire trucks, a job that relies on reliability.
It sat in his garage for six months until he was able trade a ‘78 Scout for a rolled-over truck. He took the cab off it, shortened the frame 3.5 feet, moved the motor mounts back 8 inches, boxed the frame in place and mounted on the Power Wagon’s body. That was in 2008 and he’s been driving it ever since.
“In my little bone yard at the shop I had another truck,” Mike explained. “It was a one-ton, single rear wheel with a Dana 80 in it, so I ended up putting that rear end in this. It was all the same gear ratio, like a 3.54, which sounds really high but it’s got pretty good low gears too.”
In the interior Mike has built consoles and installed rubber floor mats, an on-board air compressor and even an ARB fridge in the back. He also put in air conditioning a couple years ago which he says, “works really good,” and has installed auxiliary lights. Thanks to his hunting experience, there are deer hides on the door panels, a bear hide on the headliner and the sun visors are mule deer.
The Power Wagon has a 7.5-foot truck bed that Mike wanted to put a camper shelf on. He bought one for $50 thinking it would make for a fun weekend project. After shortening and narrowing it, his “weekend project” that turned into a three-week journey was finally done.
“It would ruin it for me,” he said. “Before I added the camper shell, when I went in the woods I could park right on the side of the forest road in the shadows and people would fly by on the road and not even notice you were there because the rust and the color of the truck just blended in almost perfectly.”
With as much overlanding, hunting and adventuring as Mike does, he’s bound to come back with a few stories. One of his more notable tales was three years ago in Las Cruces, N.M. He was with a friend up in the mountains on a rainy day when they saw something strange up ahead. They cautiously inched closer to examine and discovered 4 inches of water running down the road. Within 30 seconds it had grown to 24 inches. A flash flood. While most people, including safety officials, would tell you to stay away from something like that, Mike isn’t like most people. His friend asked him, “You’re not going to go through that are you?” Mike threw it into drive and said, “Hang on.”
Years ago, just after getting the Power Wagon running, Mike was bear hunting when he found himself caught in a hail storm. Unfortunately for Mike, he hadn’t put in side windows yet. He hid it up under a small apple tree and stuck a poncho over the side window to stop the hail.
“I’ve had this thing like 15 years so I’ve been through quite a few adventures in it.”
Mike has also entered it in car shows where he’s won, though car shows aren’t a big deal to him. His favorite part is the homemade trophies, such as a handmade tractor crank shaft, that’s he’s collected from the shows.
With a truck as unique as this, it’s sure to bring in some potential buyers.
“I’ve had a few offers,” Mike admitted. “I don’t pursue them too much because I’ll never find another one. Dodge had really low production numbers on these trucks in ‘59 and they’re really hard to find—this power giant body series. And it’s unique. I like the Toyotas, I like the Jeeps, but it’s just not unique. I’m just an old truck guy, I guess you could say.”
Trucks have always come naturally to Mike, from riding his yellow Tonka toy truck down his driveway as a kid to driving through two feet of water in his Power Wagon as an adult, and he’s not slowing down anytime soon.
330-928-9092
www.mickeythompsontires.com
Summit Racing
800-230-3030
www.summitracing.com