The light blue was a standard color for that year. Someone asked about whether or not it was a radio delete vehicle, no it came with the AM/FM 8-Track.

Let me tell you a little story about this truck. Roll back the clock to late May, early June 1978. A friend of mine decided he wanted to test drive a Little Red Express so we went down to the local Dodge Dealer. They had a LRT on the lot but the danged thing would not fire. I don't think it had any gas in it.

We were about to leave when the salesman said "Wait, we've got another truck you might be interested in". He then pointed to a light blue short bed with the standard, 15x5.5", white, steel wheels and skinny H78-15 Goodyear Poly Cushion Tires. We scoffed at the notion, it looked like a slant six fleet special. Then he said the magic words, "It has a 440 in it".

Well, that's different. Heck yeah we wanted to see that. The truck had been ordered by the dealer and was equipped with bucket seats and the 15" Tuff wheel. My friend test drove the truck with myself and the salesman.

My friend wasn't really going to buy it, remember he just wanted to drive a LRT. I made note of the truck kept tabs on it.

Back in that time frame, aftermarket stripes were somewhat in. The dealer had the truck, as well as others on the lot striped by a guy who came to the lot. The dealer also installed 15x8.5 ET Turbine mags and a set of 2 1/2 dual exhausts. Sort of a dealer custom job. I noted the truck on the lot in this form before it was sold. I once saw the truck on the street sometime later.

Years passed and I often thought about that truck. I thought it would have been a good one to buy (before the dealer striped it) because of the obvious merits. Last year for the 440, last year for the emissions exemptions for light trucks with a 6100lb gross vehicle weight rating.

In July 1994, I spotted a classified ad in the local paper that read as follows:

DODGE '78 150, 440 eng.,PS,PB, 1 owner, 21K orig. mi., $----, PH------.

Yep, same truck. The truck had been off the road since 1986. I bought it, removed the stripes, all 10 miles of them, and ditched the ET's. There is a little more to the story which involved the seller trying to buy it back but I have wasted enough of your time already. I have owned it for the past 10 years and it has been stored inside for 9 1/2 of those years.

On a side note, the build sheet and sticker both specify the Tuff wheel; however the original owner says it wasn't on the truck when he bought it. My hunch is the dealer took it off and put it on another truck on the lot.

What do you think of those stripes?