I just bought this beautiful machine and I'm very excited about it. I have quite a few antique cars and trucks but this one is a unicorn for me. The 1st vehicle I ever bought was a 52 Ford pickup and have regretted selling it since the day I sold it. I also love fuel tankers, I don't know why I just always have. You could say that I root for the truck when watching the movie "Duel". I always said the perfect truck would be a 52 Ford Tanker. This is the only one I have ever seen or heard about.

I was hoping some of you could give me an idea of what this truck would have done in its service life and maybe fill me in on any little bits of interesting information on this type of truck. Would it have fueled airliners, fueled filling stations or possibly construction equipment? I figure the body was built for a specific purpose. What I do know is it was recently being used to fuel farm equipment. I was told it was bought from a mine before that. The owner of the mine also owns a few aviation companies so I'm guessing it was a roadside display at an airport for a while.

The truck is a 52 Ford F8, they were called "Big Jobs". It still retains it's original engine and 6 volt + ground electrical system. It's very original, which is a huge plus for me. The body was built by Quaker City Iron Works in 2/53. It runs and drives and is surprisingly rust free but according to my friend that looked it over for me it has a lot of paint cracks which could mean its loaded with body filler or it just had a bad paint job. I do plan to enjoy it as is for a while and eventually restore it as is should be.

More pictures

appears truck is ready for service, congratulations on your newest accusation .. ...

Pretty cool, looks like it is in really good shape. We have an old IH that is yard art by the pole barn. They are fun to look at but I think it would take some muscles to drive it.

I would say it was used to fuel helicopters at an airport during the 60s and 70s and maybe longer. lotsa Bells with jet engines around then.

Got to live the dream....nice!

Good looking tanker truck. Great find with it being solid and running. I'll bet it has some stories to tell. Could have had several careers hauling different fuels for different owners.

Very nice ,enjoy

Love the look of the cab!

Super nice. Always enjoy photos of old vehicles that will be saved from scrap. My son bought one similar and is on his farm now. Believe his also came from a small airport.

Thank you for the compliments everyone!
It potentially fueling helicopters years ago makes sense. The area is pretty rural and I doubt there would be much demand for Jet A other than helicopters.

I'm guessing this truck would have stayed pretty local is what ever it did. I can't see one going on long hauls. I'm guessing that was left to the tractor trailers.

Any pictures of the one your son has on the farm? Id love to see it.

Good looking truck, Great condition for it's age. Looking inside the rear of the truck there is a large Jet Vessel for filtering water. Indicates an intended use for Jet A Fuel. But other distillates work fine (ie: farm use)
Typical farm service trucks had multi compartment tanks. Wonder why "Flamable" is miss-spelled? Looking at all my old tanker photos they all spell it with 2 M's. Trucks from that Era did not have placards, just Flammable or Inflammable on them.

HEY!!! I saw you post this over on Ford Truck Enthusiasts, too! I'm on there as "Reforder".

This is such a great vehicle, and it's great to see you over here, too!

I hope to get it home this coming weekend. It's a good 4 or 5 hours from my home. I'll check to see how many compartments it has and take some better pictures.

What is the "large Jet Vessel" that you mentioned? Is it the large canister on the right in the rear? I guess it is just a large fuel water separator?

I have a pretty good guess as to what this truck did new, of course it's just speculation.

BLK, a mining company acquired this truck in 1989 according to the title. They were in Mt Hope WV. The owner of BLK also owned Beckley Aviation at the local airport not 10 miles away.

That airport opened in 1952, the truck is a 1952. The first commercial flights from the airport were Piedmont Airlines DC-3's. The large1800 gallon tank is enough to fill 3 of them it's over kill for general aviation aircraft at a small airport. The last aircraft that Piedmont flew out of that airport were turbo prop YS-11's and they burn Jet A fuel. Piedmont went out of business in 1989 the same year the truck was acquired by BLK.