1959 IHC BC-150 Truck

This truck is as ugly as they come, but it is very special to me.  When my daughter and her husband bought their home (an old ranch house up in the mountains of Colorado), this truck was sitting on the property.  Obviously being the motorhead that I am, I kept looking at it each time we visited them.  They found the owner and bought it for me as a Christmas present (‘97) - boy was I surprised!!  For that reason alone, it is special to me, but it is special for other reasons.  I have become very involved with a bunch of “crazy “ IHC folks on the internet and have attended several of their events.  They are great people!  Lastly, it is a bit of a rare animal.

 

The truck is the forerunner of the Loadstar truck line and was their  medium truck line for the period.  The line consisted of a series of trucks from lightest model (BC150) with the heaviest being the BC180 (had a GVW of over 25K pounds).  The BC150 had a production of 660 while the next model (BC160) had 13,998 (for comparison, the “long nosed versions had production numbers of 4492 for the B-150 and 45,606 for the B-160).  The BC models were only made from ’59 to ’61.  The now famous Loadstar  line started its long production  run in 1962.  The BC line was an experiment to make a truck that was a combination of a cab-over and conventional truck.  Because of the relatively short nose, the engine compartment extends into the cab more than most trucks.

 

I was able to obtain a copy of the line set ticket for the truck and it was equipped with the optional BD 264 six cylinder engine, T98 four speed transmission and a two speed rear end.  It has a GVW of 9K pounds.

 

The body is not too bad, but the engine is really stuck.  My plan was to get it running this spring and maybe do some body work and a primer job, but my garage project has me way behind schedule.  I would still love to take it to a couple of IHC events this year, but not sure if I will make it.

 

In April 2002, I got the truck running.  As of December, 2003, I have about 1,400 miles on it.  I even used it to practice for my CDL driving test using a fifth wheel trailer that we had.  The six cylinder engine runs good, but lacks power for highway speed and big hills. 

 

I have purchase a 392 IHC V8 engine with a five speed transmission.  I also purchased a Brownie three speed auxiliary transmission.  I will install these as soon as time permits.  Should make a pretty good truck with a lot of power and gearing!

 

As a footnote, part of the fun of these old projects is history involved.  Shown below are two magazine ads for this family of trucks.  They are thumbnail photos—you can click on them for larger photos (may be a bit slow to load).

The ad on the left is from the inside cover of the August 22, 1960 U. S. News and World Report, while the ad on the right is from an unknown edition of the Farm Joournal.