Editor’s note: Our 2014 SEMA show coverage will begin in earnest on Monday, so this weekend we’re looking back at least year’s show to get you revved up!
So the SEMA 2013 hits keep on coming and they will for a few more days here as we continue to work through the amazingly vast array of content that we shot or began to create when we were in the greater Las Vegas area last week. This time we’re taking you back into the Galpin Auto Sports tent that was positioned outside of the Las Vegas Convention Center. This is the same one that housed the awesome four-engine Mach IV Mustang that we profiled in a similar fashion yesterday. Across the tent from the Mustang was this magnificent machine, the famed “Backup Pickup” wheelstander that was built by Dick Harding and driven by both Harding and George Tuers. It is important to note that this is not the original truck but an accurate and awesome recreation completed by Galpin Auto Sports own Dave Shuten in a span of just over three months from start to finish.
All wheelstanders have some “hook” to them. Maybe they look like a tank or they are insanely quick and fast, or they have some other part of their act that people are into. In the case of the Backup Pickup it was some clever slight of hand that had people reeling when they saw it make a wheels up hit down the course. That slight of hand was to mount the Econoline truck body backwards on the chassis, effectively making the back the front and the front the back. It also looked hella awesome when the truck would go down the strip with Harding or Tuers trying to see over or around the bed that was leading the way down track. With the front end up, forward vision out of this truck is non-existent. Often times these guys drove with their heads hanging out the window to see where they were heading.
The engine is a 427ci Ford that replicates the look of the original but has way more in the power department. The paint is amazing and captures the free-spirited, whimsical attitudes of the day. From the lace and panel painting to the pin striping, this is one magnificent truck. This is also one of those vehicles that everyone “saw run” back in the day. If the sheer number of people who have reported to me that they watched the original Backup Pickup run down a track is anywhere near accurate, this truck was actually in multiple parts of the country at the same time. Yes, they traveled and ran a lot, but c’amon people. The truck was good for 9s on the rear tires with the bed pointing the way and the cab basically dragging on the ground.
As you will see in the photos below, the driver’s area is a spartan affair. In today’s world you’d expect to see more bars, more containment, and more safety stuff for a driver to protect himself with. Back then, the roll cage was a-ok, the van bucket seat fit the bill, and as long as the dude had a helmet he was in business. Note the three handles in the center of the cab. One is obviously the shifter while the other two each control one of the brakes on the rear end so that Tuers or Harding could steer the truck as it headed down course with the front end several feet in the air. It had to have been an interesting process to get those babies dialed in an familiar. It requires a deft touch for anyone to drive a wheelstander and back then even more so. We wish that in-cab video existed of these guys working those handles like mad men to keep the truck traveling down the straight and narrow.
We’ll let the photos below do the talking. Word is that they’re going to try to run this thing a time two and it was constructed to be used, not just to look pretty. We really want to be there to witness this perfect recreation stir memories of the past!
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ALL OF OUR PHOTOS FEATURING THE FAMED BACKUP PICKUP
