Last May our little town got plastered by a big bad F-5 tornado. Some of
you may have heard. Fortunately, I was out of town, but my '51 3100 5
window was parked outside about 400 yards from where the center of the
tornado passed. The destruction was unbelieveable, as the winds there
were over 318 MPH. I would conservatively guess the wind speeds at my
house were 175 to 200 MPH from the damage I saw when I got back. All my
neighbors who rode it out, said that they thought they were gonna die.
But you can guess my great relief, to find just a couple of relatively
minor 1-2" dents in the top of the cab of the 3100. You could see many
scratches, and impact points along the side of the truck, where pieces of
other people's houses had hit it, but with only that and no broken glass,
I was a happy man. A very, very little bondo, and a new paint job and it
will be as good as new.
The insurance adjuster, just scratched his head and said, "I guess they
just don't make them like that any more." Nearly all my neighbors around
me, weren't so lucky as they had pieces of lumber and telephone poles
sticking through the sides and windows of their relatively new cars. And
they were the lucky ones.
I'm not saying to anyone out there to deliberately drive their 3100 into
the maw of a major tornado, but isn't it comforting to know you're in
your "safe room" when you're out cruising down the road.
Happy Truckin!
Larry Finley
Oklahoma City
"The Mighty '51" Tornado Truck
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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