'Part of him with me': Sask. man fixing up grandpa's classic truck after finding it for sale on social media
'Part of him with me': Sask. man fixing up grandpa's classic truck after finding it for sale on social media
PREECEVILLE, SASK. -
A 24-year-old man from Preeceville, Sask. was reunited with his grandfather’s classic, custom-made Ford truck after finding it on social media and plans to restore it to its former glory.
Sean Ebel said he discovered a familiar Ford F100 posted to a Facebook group in the summer of 2021. It was the same truck his grandfather, Leonard Ebel, bought nearly 50 years ago.
“The guy who made the post wanted to cut it up for a parts truck,” Sean said in an interview with CTV News.
“I absolutely love this thing. I could never image someone cutting it up.”
Sean remembers visiting his grandfather’s farm as a child and admiring the 1974 burnt-orange beauty.
“I would see this truck sitting there and I just thought it was the coolest thing,” he said.
The truck was inherited by a family member after his grandfather died, but Sean still enjoyed taking care of it.
“I was very proud to drive it around on my grad day and show it off. It was very special,” he said.
Sean said he was often away for work and didn’t realize the truck was sold until two years later. He said he immediately reached out, bought the truck back and set his sights on fixing it up again.
Wilfred Ebel, Leonard’s younger brother, worked at Formo Motors, the dealership where the truck is from. He remembers his brother’s excitement.
“He was ecstatic. He had never owned a brand new vehicle before and he just loved it,” Wilfred said.
Wilfred is glad the truck is being restored and staying in the family.
“Leonard would be so happy, he thought the world of that truck,” he said.
He said the truck is a sixth generation F100 pickup truck (1973-1979), and the 1974 was the last model to come out, before the infamous Ford 150 was introduced in 1975. His brother custom ordered it to have a heavy-duty rear suspension and a four-speed transmission, with a low gear for towing bales around the farm.
Nearly five decades later, Wilfred said the truck hasn’t had any major problems. Sean added it still has most of the original drive train.
Sean said his grandpa died when he was young, but he feels a connection when he works on the truck.
“It felt like I did have part of him with me,” Sean said.
Right now, he is focusing on getting the engine running again, then he’ll replace the tires, and give it a fresh paint job.
He plans to keep the original colour and restore it back to, “how my grandpa would have wanted it”.
“And maybe throw little bit of my own spin on it,” he added.
Sean said working on the truck has sparked his interest to go back to school, and pursue a career as a mechanic.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
Residents digging through a collapsed building in a northwest Syrian town discovered a crying infant whose mother appears to have given birth to her while buried underneath the rubble from this week's devastating earthquake, relatives and a doctor said Tuesday.
The British Columbia government has introduced legislation to make Sept. 30 a paid statutory holiday marking the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Canadians now believe they need $1.7 million in savings in order to retire, a 20 per cent increase from 2020, according to a new BMO survey. The eye-watering figure is the largest sum since BMO first started surveying Canadians about their retirement expectations 13 years ago.
Three men who disappeared after planning to rap at a Detroit party were killed by multiple gunshots, police said Tuesday, five days after their bodies were found in a vacant, rat-infested building.
Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands announced Tuesday that they plan to provide Ukraine with at least 100 refurbished Leopard 1 battle tanks, a pledge that comes as Kyiv anticipates a new Russian offensive around the anniversary of its invasion.
Zoom is cutting about 1,300 jobs, or approximately 15% of its workforce. CEO Eric Yuan said in a blog post Tuesday that the company ramped up staffing during the COVID-19 pandemic, when businesses became increasingly reliant on its service as people worked from home. Yuan said Zoom grew three times in size within 24 months to manage demand.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
The Tsuut'ina Police Service, which serves a community west of Calgary, is expected to share more details about the case against former Dances With Wolves actor Nathan Chasing Horse, CTV News has learned.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
An Ontario man is being accused of changing his name, profession and life story multiple times to potentially more than 100 women online before leaving some out thousands of dollars, a CTV News Toronto investigation has found.
Nearly five years after Matthew Staikos was gunned down in Toronto, the family of the tech CEO has renewed a $250,000 reward in the unsolved murder case.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
There is a new sign of financial issues with an Ottawa construction company that suddenly closed, leaving customers with unfinished projects unable to recoup their losses.
One of Canada's largest unions representing public servants has filed a bad-faith bargaining complaint against the Canada Revenue Agency over what it's calling an "about-face" on the issue of working from home.
A passenger plane packed with donations and emergency supplies is set to travel from Vancouver, B.C., to Istanbul on Tuesday, as the death toll from Monday’s 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Turkiye and Syria surpasses 6,200.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
Rainfall warnings have been lifted in the Lower Mainland, but the storm that brought them has now prompted Environment and Climate Change Canada to advise against non-essential travel on two highways in B.C.'s Interior.
The Laurier Macdonald High School in Montreal's Saint-Leonard borough was placed into lockdown Tuesday afternoon due to a threat, but Montreal police say they believe it appears to be unfounded.
The federal government is pledging to increase health funding to Canada's provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over the next 10 years, in a long-awaited deal aimed at addressing Canada's crumbling health-care systems with $46.2 billion in new funding.
Another British Columbia university has taken back the honorary degree it bestowed on retired judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond after an investigation raised doubts about her claims of Indigenous heritage.
B.C.'s police watchdog has cleared the Victoria Police Department of wrongdoing after officers found a man dead inside his home during a wellness check last year.
A former medical student who claims he fatally shot a fellow student in self-defence during a drug deal in Halifax denied Tuesday he planned to kill the man and steal the marijuana he was carrying.
A 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot and wounded his first-grade teacher constantly cursed at staff and teachers, chased students around and tried to whip them with his belt and once choked another teacher 'until she couldn't breathe,' according to a legal notice filed by an attorney for the wounded teacher.
