Back on the road

Deerwood man coordinate restoration of ‘34 truck

By Jillian Kellerman

Quint Hanson of Deerwood is the owner of a 1934 Chevrolet 1.5-ton flatbed truck. This rare truck, originally built during the Great Depression, has been rebuilt from the ground up, as close to original specifications as possible.

“It happened over a long period of time, and there were times when my wife wanted me to give it up, and I probably would have agreed with her,” Quint said, “but at some point, you get into these projects so far, that it’s kind of hard to say no.”

Quint Hanson of Deerwood obtained possession of a 1934 1.5 ton flatbed truck in the late 1990s. While most people would have scraped the old truck, Hanson coordinated the restoration of the rare truck from bumper to bumper. Here is the finished product. Contributed photo

Quint obtained possession of the truck in the late 1990s when a neighbor offered him partial ownership if Quint agreed to store it in his shop.

“In the years that followed, the neighbor passed away, and I was left with a truck that was in very poor shape,” he said. “To say it was in the process of restoration would be a stretch. Very little restoration had been completed. I made the decision to begin the process of restoring and rebuilding the truck from the ground up.”

Quint found his restoration team from local and surrounding area businessmen -- auto dealers, auto parts stores, body shops, even an engineer and a local logger to assist with the truck bed. Locating original parts made the project challenging at times, but they managed to overhaul the entire 207 cubic inch six-cylinder engine.

“Over the course of about two and a half years the engine was rebuilt,” Quint said. “We actually had to buy another used engine for parts. I found parts in Wisconsin, in New Jersey, in Oregon, down in Independence, Missouri, a number of different places to find all the parts.”

The truck as it looked before the restoration began. Contributed photos

Once the engine was rebuilt, Quint said he located a body shop to rebuild the frame and paint the truck. Quint’s wife chose the colors based on specification paint colors for that year of vehicle.

“That probably took over three years for them to start and finish it,” he said. “They took the entire truck apart. They took the doors off, the engine out, took it off the frame, completely sandblasted the whole frame, rebuilt the body, refitted the doors, and put the whole thing back together and painted it.”

The truck bed was then designed and blueprinted, again to specifications, by a friend of Quint’s who is an engineer. Logs were cut, dried, and milled to size by a local retired millwright, taking another two and a half years to complete. Quint then began the process of building the stake box.

“Once I built the box on the truck chassis, I took the stake box totally apart and sanded and varnished each piece with three coats of high-quality polyurethane,” he said.

A side shot of the 1934 truck after restoration was completed. 

Quint finished this process over a three-year period, ultimately reassembling the box one piece at a time. The stake box was completed in April of 2024.

“I was very cautious to ensure the finished product was as close to original specifications as possible,” he said. “Other than some fine tuning, the truck is ready to roll.”

While it’s unclear if Quint will take on another project of this stature -- maybe a smaller pickup truck or an old Volkswagon -- he said he enjoyed it and it was a work of love.

“All in all, this was a fun project that probably took much longer than necessary,” he said, “but the finished product is well worth the time spent.”