1951 Chevy 3/4 ton truck in very good condition. Keep or Sell?

CarolinaMom

Several years ago, my daughter was very ill and confined to our home for months on end. Her illness lingered for years, but she is now much improved. During the time she was home bound, she fell in love with a beautiful teal 1951 chevy 3/4 ton truck. As a surprise for her 15th birthday, I drove all the way to Chicago and bought it for her. It is in good condition, and has after market heat, air, electric, original engine rebuild, ect. It is a thing of beauty. The dilemma is that given it's age and her poor understanding of cars in general, she is afraid to drive it, now that she is better. She wants to be a Vet, so it is a perfect vehicle for the future. I can drive it with no problem, but her father has always thought I was crazy for purchasing it. She is now thinking we should sell, after vehemently refusing to give it any thought in the past.
My general intuition is to keep it. My mom is willing to cough up $3,000. for a used vehicle if I decide not to sell it.
Suggestions? If I did get a used car instead of selling, what could I buy for $3,000. that would be a safe and acceptable vehicle?
HELP!!!!!!!

UncleTurbo

Perhaps your daughter would accept some driving instruction from a professional driving school instructor. After an orientation the instructor could teach her in her own truck.

Unfortunately $3,000 doesn't buy much and often you get a vehicle with one or more expensive problems.

Barkydog

I had an 03 ranger, I offered to keep for my daughter, rather than sell to upgrade for my needs. I went through the I hate that truck, I don't ever want that truck, so I sold it. Granma gave her an 01 Saturn as she could drive no more, but critter was like I wish you had kept that truck for me, sorry. It is going to come to a point that driving anything is better than driving nothing. Keep it, park it, and when all else has gone south, offer her the key, and say drive it if you want to.

Triedaq

A 1951 Chevrolet truck may be an interestig historical vehicle, but it is not a vehicle, particularly with its original engine, that is good to drive on the interstates or in traffic. It is a hobby vehicle. I owned a 1950 Chevrolet one ton pickup truck. It was great for low speed local hauling. The Chevrolet stovebolt 6 in the truck, which I suspect is the same as the engine in your truck, was a good engine for this purpose. These trucks are geared low. I even used mine to stretch fence. However, the top speed would probably be about 65 mph and would not be suitable with its slow acceleration for highway use. The steering took quite a bit of muscle, and the brakes required quite a bit of effort. Even so, the stopping distances were quite long. Unless the brakes have been upgraded to power disk brakes, this isn't a vehicle for a female teenage driver.
I even disagree that this a a vehicle for a veterinarian. Veterinarians who specialize in farm animals often drive quite a distance between farms. The veterinarians I dealt with when I lived in the country had closed vehicles to carry their medical equipment--they weren't carrying the equipment in the open bed of a pickup truck.
Sell the truck. If your daughter needs transportation, purchase a more modern car. When your daughter completes veterinary school and sets up her practice, then is the time to select a vehicle.

Barkydog

Ya know Trie, each and every one of your responses is true, But at what point can we say We lived through driving these vehicles, and now what we did as youngers you cannot do because it is unsafe and we have to provide the padded protected environment so you dare not expose yourself to the dangers we grew up with? The only person I know that got killed in a car was while we were racing from on bar to another. the tree won.

Triedaq

Barkeydog--conditions are different than when I was a young driver 50 years ago. The interstate system was just being built. Even the big U-Haul trucks are easier to drive with the power steering and power brakes than the 1950 Chevrolet one ton pickup that I owned. I owned the truck from 1972 through 1975. I had just finished my graduate degree and settled into a job. My wife and I had bought a 5 acre tract in the country. I used the truck for local use for hauling fence materials, hay and straw, etc. Trucks back in the early 1950s were 'work trucks'. It wasn't until the late 1950s that pickups began having more creature comforts and power to compete with cars for daily transportation. Even though GMC and Ford offered automatic transmissions in 1953 and Chevrolet followed in 1954, automatic transmissions didn't become common in pickups until the mid 1960s. Today, I don't think that half ton pickups are even available with standard transmissions.
I like cars and trucks from the 1940s and 1950s. I get to step back in time when I visit my brother who restored a 1954 Buick very much like the one my dad owned when we were growing up and I later bought from my dad in my second year of graduate school. However, the drum brakes, slow steering ratio and a clutch pedal that takes almost 2 feet to depress isn't a car I want to use for daily transportation today.

texases

Yep, not a safe vehicle for a new (or any, really) driver. Barkydog, you're mistaking your survival for some general lesson. In fact, those who died in those times aren't posting here very often. Car deaths have dropped 80 % over the last 50 years, largely because the cars are MUCH safer. Surviving a dangerous car is not a 'growth' experience, it's just being lucky.

This is a great hobby vehicle, a bad daily use vehicle.

Triedaq

texases--I'm glad you agree with me. I sometimes feel that I am becoming a wimp in my old age of wanting air conditioning, power steering, etc. in my vehicles. However, I'll be a wimp rather than go back to driving the 1950 Chevrolet pickup that I once owned.

DfromSD

Keep it for parades, holidays, and when you need to haul something, etc. if you like, but I would give up on the idea of using it as a daily driver or a vet's vehicle.

the same mountainbike

You won't get much in my area for $3,000.
And I agree that modern cars are far, far safer and more reliable that anything out of 1951.

However, if you drove "all the the way to Chicago", that suggests to me that you're in the rural midwest. Her desire to be a vet sort of reinforces that suspicon of mine. And, frankly, when I was out there 40+ years ago there was a lot of rural roadway still in use.

I have mixed thoughts. If this is in good operating condition, and the area you live in is rural, I'd suggest keeping it for her. It'll probably be safer than what you can get for $3000. Use the money you would have spent to help her through vet school. Then, if she wants to, she can sell it. Millions of young kids grow up in the rural midwest with vehicles like this and they do fine.

jtsanders

A quick look on line shows that a Chevy 3600 in lousy condition might cost several thousand, and one in good condition can be sold for over $10,000. Does it have a manual or auto transmission? I'd guess manual; is she afraid of a manual trans? If you aren't going to drive it while your daughter warms up to it (maybe), you should probably sell it. And if she hasn't started college yet, she will have at least 8 years of undergraduate and veterinary school before she can practice. Do you want to keep the truck that long?

Barkydog

I would add seat belts as a minimum requirement.