'It's ugly, but it gets the job done'
Tell Joel Smiglewski your car has 300,000 miles, and he'll tell you "it's just getting broken in."
Smiglewski, the service manager at Mikan Motors in Butler Township, drives a 1979 Ford F-100 pickup with about 380,000 miles.
"I saw it on eBay and thought I needed it. I figured for the price of a new truck, I could buy five old ones," Smiglewski said.
While his wife was hesitant to drop $4,000 on a truck with 330,000 miles, Smiglewski said he always liked the body style of the old Ford trucks, and has only had to replace the radiator in more than two years of ownership.
"It's ugly, but it gets the job done," Smiglewski said of the brown-on-brown paint job. "It's easy to fix and the parts are cheap if I need them."
The truck has no air conditioning and talk radio is its biggest luxury feature, but it still boasts the original engine and transmission.Smiglewski said the only after-market work he has done is the application of rubberized undercoat on the undercarriage."That's probably the only thing getting it through the Pennsylvania winters," he said.Smiglewski drives the truck to work every day from his Butler home, and said he is unlikely ever to sell it."I think I'll pass it on to my son," Smiglewski said. Then, laughing, "He probably won't want it, though.
