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Somewhat related, here is an editorial I wrote for Vintage Truck about 25 years ago. It is mostly true and only slightly exaggerated for effect:

Jake's AA Ford

I have mixed emotions about Ford AA trucks. They are historically important, look kind of neat, and thousands of people love and swear by them.

But then, I’ve driven one.

It wasn’t much of a drive. In fact, I didn't leave the township, but I had a small field of straw to get under cover and the forecast was for rain. Having fun playing with a quaint old truck was not on my agenda. I need a truck. What I got was the use of Jake’s Ford AA.

My friend Jake, who passed away 12 years ago, owned a ’29 Ford AA flatbed. He was one of that strange breed who can be intensely proud of his truck even though it is a piece of junk that hasn’t seen regular maintenance since Ike was in the White House. He had been proudly driving this truck since the 1940s and didn’t seem to mind, or maybe he just didn’t notice, all its foibles and eccentricities. He probably didn’t realize it was a piece of junk and a death trap.

When I mentioned at the coffee shop that I needed a truck bigger than my pickup for a few hours Jake proudly announced that his AA was just what I needed and insisted that I borrow it. Maybe he thought that if I survived after beating myself up in that cramped cab and risking death at the wheel of that clattering heap, I, too, would find something endearing about the old wreck.

His driving instructions went something like this:
“The only funny thing about this truck is the door latch is broke so you gotta use this wire to tie it shut. Remember, when you shift from 2nd to 3rd push the clutch in, pull it in neurtral, and let the clutch out. When the engine gets pretty quiet, push the clutch in and shove ‘er into 3rd. She don’t idle good so if you wait too long and let the engine die, you have to start ‘er up an gun ‘er to get ‘er going, then try to catch it on the way down between runnin’ and not runnin’ – just when it’s nice and quiet but not all the way quiet. Now, don’t let ‘er die too many times ‘cause the battery’s about shot and if you run it down you’ll have to crank ‘er. The blinkers don’t work, so you have to use hand signals. Don ‘t try to use the brakes unless you got both hands on the wheel real good ‘cause they pull pretty bad – sometimes left and sometimes right, it depends. That’s all you have to remember.”

I was dreading the possibility of having to coast to the side of the road and crank start the engine every time I tried to shift from 2nd to 3rd gear. And the part about keeping both hands on the wheel when I used the brakes while using hand signals to announce my intentions – well, I wondered if Jake noticed that I only have two hands.

It occurred to me that all along old Jake may not have been as neighborly as we all thought. What we took as a lot of friendly waving all those years may have been Jake frantically trying to signal his turns and slow down at the same time. I didn’t question him. I figured if he’d been driving the truck successfully for 50 years it must be possible.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out that that as soon as I took my foot off the throttle the engine tried to die, slowing the truck dramatically and minimizing the need for the brakes. I don’t know why the truck even had brakes. With its worn-out worm gear rear-end, I doubt it would have coasted down Pike’s Peak.

I forgot the “only“ funny thing about the truck and didn’t wire the door closed, so letting off the gas not only brought the truck to a near standstill, but sent the door swinging around to slam against the front fender. I spite of this distraction; I caught the engine before it died completely and ran the first stop sign I encountered in 3rd gear with a flapping door and a tottering load of straw at a blazing 2 ½ miles an hour.

I got the hang of driving the AA soon, but I still stayed pretty busy there in the cab, sawing away on the wheel with one hand, furiously waving out the window with the other, and dancing on the gas and the clutch to keep the engine from dying. The whole thing might have been fun if I hadn’t had a load of soon-to-be wet straw on the back and a string of traffic blowing horns behind me.

I don’t know what happened to Jake’s truck after he died. It God has a sense of humor it is clattering through heaven with Jake at the wheel, grinning and waving at the angels – or signaling a left turn, who knows?