Dodge Project Trucks

"Daisy" is a 1947 Dodge, WD-20, 1 ton truck. What you see in

the picture to the left, is what I got when I bought it. I don't know if it

originally had a pickup bed, a flat bed, a dump bed or was sold as a “Cab &

Chassis”.

The story of how this truck came to be a project truck for me is

a bit of a funny story. I had bought another project to work on that had a

1940 grille on it. But the grill was smashed beyond what I was going to be

able to save. I really hadn’t put much thought into what I was going to do

about that grille, as it wasn’t an urgent matter for me. The “other

vehicle” was just a shell of a vehicle and needed a lot more work before

the grill was going to become important. One day, as I was perusing

Craigslist, I bumped into the ad for the truck that eventually came to be

known as “Daisy”.

The name comes (again) from my wife. In most light, the truck

looks white. But in bright sunlight, it is actually yellow. She made the

connection to daisies and the rest, as they say, is history. Although, I

think “Daisy” is the wrong name for a 1947 Dodge 1 ton truck that was

clearly a work horse. But it seems I have little say in the matter.

So back to the story: the price was right, so I bought it with the

intent of taking the grille from it and putting my smashed one back on it

and reselling the truck for whatever I could get. Then a friend of mine

offered me another grille really cheap and I thought that would enhance

this truck more than putting the smashed one back on it. When I had the

grille off the truck, the serial number on the frame was left in plain sight.

So I cleaned it off and posted it on the Yahoo group "39-47 Dodge Truck"

forum to find that this particular truck was the last one to come off the

assembly line at the Los Angeles Dodge truck plant, of this body style.

The LA plant only made a handful compared to the Detroit plant, (appx

1,500 vs. 20,000) which makes the “LA trucks” more collectable. But add

to that, this is the last one.