Kyle Trithart grew up on a grain farm outside the tiny south-eastern Saskatchewan village of Windthorst. An old Mercury truck was abandoned on his grandparents’ farm nearby.
Walter Dawson, Kyle’s mother’s father, had bought the 1951 Mercury M3 one-ton truck from the Dodge dealer in Windthorst in 1965 after had moved to town and wanted a truck to go back and forth to his farm. The truck soon became christened as the Goomper truck by Walter’s young grandson Steven. Eventually, the farm was passed on to one of Walter’s four daughters where the truck continued to haul grain and pull trailers until it was completely worn out and parked at the beginning of the 1980s.
Kyle, a millwright now living outside Red Deer, Alberta, would look at the old truck when he visited his grandparents’ homestead. After his grandmother’s passing, his aunt Carol told him the truck was his if he wanted it. The truck sat out on the farm for another dozen years. Kyle’s vision was to use the flathead V8 engine in the truck to build a Model A hot rod.
In 2018, he and his brother put wheels under the truck and hauled it to their parents’ farm where it ended up in the shop. Remarkably, the truck that had sat for 60 years started up after the heads were pulled off and the valves freed. Over the next few years, Kyle, his brother Ryan and father Raymond tinkered with the truck to make it mobile – all by horse trading for parts, being careful not to invest too much money in the old truck.
For Christmas, Kyle bought his brother a polisher for buffing vehicles. “I knew he liked polishing his tractors to keep them looking good,” he says. Soon they were polishing on the old Ford truck that, after 40 years sitting outside, most of the green repaint had bleached of revealing the original Mission Gray paint.
As the polishing progressed, big block letters above the windshield began to reveal the name Defoe Motors. Some of the green paint was still on the driver’s door protecting what was underneath. When buffed, the name ‘Edward Daku’ emerged. An internet search reveled a phone number for Edward and Louise Daku in Okotoks, Alberta. Kyle made the call.
“Initially Mr. Daku couldn’t remember the truck. But when I mentioned Defoe Motors in Leaside, he lit right up and remembered buying the truck in 1953,” Kyle says.
Mr. Daku told of working in Toronto over the winter of 1953 with his three brothers when he bought the truck for $700 from Defoe Motors. He brought it back to Saskatchewan where it would haul grain on the farm outside Kipling, Saskatchewan and carry calves to auction in Brandon.
“In 1965, he traded the truck in on a Dodge at the dealer in Windthorst for $800. He was tickled pink that he sold the truck for one hundred dollars more than he paid for it,” Kyle Trithart says of his conversations during a visit with Edward Daku and his wife who are now in their mid-90s.
Kyle received a photo of the Daku’s son Doug sitting on the truck’s fender in 1965 showing the truck had an accessory bull hood ornament with red eyes and plastic horns that was still on the truck when he got it. So. the lettering hiding under the bleached paint of the 75-year-old Canadian-built Mercury truck helped tell the story of its history.
Kyle believes the Defoe Motors in bold letters above the windshield indicates the dealership that sold Mercury, Lincoln, Meteor cars and Mercury trucks in Toronto’s Leaside area from 1946 through 1958 may have used it as a service truck.
“In 1953, Ford and Mercury introduced a new body style for their trucks so that may be the reason the dealership sold the truck,” he says.
The resurrection of the Goomper truck is very much a work in progress for Kyle Trithart as he lives 1,000 kilometres away from his parents’ farm where it is stored.
Last Christmas, on Boxing Day, he drove the truck to Windthorst where his grandfather had purchased it 60 years before.
“It got thumbs up and smiles from the older people who saw it,” he says. “Now we know a lot of the truck’s history and that’s important. We will continue to work on it and keep it in the family.”
Alyn Edwards is a classic car enthusiast and partner in a Vancouver-based public relations company. [email protected]
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