A big ol' truck that rides hard, can't keep up on the interstate, has room for only two passengers and needs a jumbo-size garage to call home isn't everybody's idea of a perfect hobby vehicle.
For guys like Fred Kilmer, though, nothing is more worthy of preservation than a humble, loyal, hard-working farm truck. One with dual back wheels, old-fashioned clearance lights, mudflaps that really catch mud, and absolutely no fuzzy dice.
Kilmer remembered from his childhood what such trucks felt like, rode like and even smelled like — and it all came back to him when he and his son Rick finished restoring their 1951 International L-130 1-ton. The truck now has a wooden sign mounted on the back that reads "Kilmer's D&P Lumber." That might not mean much to anybody beyond his immediate family, but it means a lot to Kilmer.
"When I grew up my dad worked at a lumberyard and they bought a new L-130 and L-160 pickup truck in the little town of Dawson, Iowa," Kilmer recalled. "I was born in '46, and think what they bought was a '52. Those L-130s were the same in '50 and '51 and '52 ... I remember those trucks and learned to drive on those trucks ...
"One day I was talking with my son and I said, 'I wish I could find one of those.'"
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