Highway calls for 1951 Ford F-7 big rig - Chicago Daily Herald
"The vehicle has always been in the family's possession but was stored and forgotten about for 50 years," said Rittenhouse, a Mount Morris resident. His father, Nelson Rittenhouse, owned Kable Brothers Transport, a Mount Morris trucking company that operated from 1937 to 1975. "My dad purchased the F-7 in the early part of 1951 with intentions of using it full time. He never liked how it pulled a trailer so, after putting just 2,300 miles on it, he parked it," Rittenhouse said. The Big Job sat parked and unused until 2001 when Rittenhouse's father passed away. Because it had sat inside a company warehouse, the condition was better than most decades-old vehicles. "My father's shop had an overabundance of F-7 parts so if I needed anything, I just went to the stockroom," Rittenhouse said. From the factory, Ford installed a 127 horsepower, 337-cubic-inch Lincoln flathead V-8, which was the largest available powerplant for the F-7. All those years of sitting unused had caused the rig's engine to seize. A second engine with just 15,000 miles on it was sourced from a '51 F-7 Big Job fire engine. Source: www.dailyherald.com
