Heaven Smiles on Restored Ford Truck

by Chasidy Rae Sisk

Most of the time, a truck is merely a vehicle that provides a means of transportation…but once in a while, it’s something more.

County Line Auto Body (Howell) doesn’t often take on restoration work, but exceptions are occasionally made if a vehicle has “deep sentimental value or a story that deserves to be told,” explains shop co-owner Richard Gardella. When he was first contacted about restoring a 1928 Ford Model AA, he wasn’t sure if the job fit the bill, but as he learned more about the vehicle’s owner and the history behind the truck, he soon realized that it was a project worth undertaking…

Okie Whitcraft has owned Okie’s Butcher Shop in Long Beach Island for over 40 years, though he first went into business on the mainland back in 1980. And he purchased that old vehicle about a decade after opening his second store. “That baby goes back at least 30 years,” Whitcraft recalls. “I often drove up to Vincentown, and for years, I’d noticed this old Model AA sitting in a farmer’s garage. One day, I stopped in to ask if he was interested in selling it; he was asking $8,500 for it, so I asked if it ran. ‘Absolutely,’ he said, and he started it up, and it kicked right over. I told him I’d need to think about it.”

It didn’t take long for Whitcraft to make a decision. A couple of buddies rode with him to pick up the truck, and the previous owner threw in a bunch of original spare parts. “I started that puppy up and drove it down 72 all the way to Long Beach Island,” he reminisces, laughing at the reactions he got. “The old timers were giving me the thumbs up, but the young kids were giving me the middle finger salute because I was slowing them down.”

Whitcraft had some fun with the truck over the years. He added an “Okie’s Butcher Shop” logo to the door, and for several years, he drove it in the local Christmas parade with a life-size fiberglass steer sitting in the truckbed. “I’d give out rides to the kids on the mainland for Halloween and Christmas; everyone had a lot of fun with that old Ford.”

And when the truck needed a little maintenance work performed, Whitcraft also got to score some bonding time with his dad. “Dad was a ditch digger in his day, but he did a lot of mechanical work and knew everything about a Ford, so he taught me a bit about the ramifications of the motor and spark plugs,” Whitcraft reflects. “He showed me how to take the plug out of the four cylinder and turn it around so you could tune it up and set everything in line.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that everything always went the way they intended, Whitcraft admits. “So, there’s a flat wire that goes to the distributor and spark plugs, and one day, like a dummy, I went to hook it up while it was running – boy, that’ll give you the shock of your life! ‘You should know better,’ Dad told me as he stood there, laughing. ‘It’s running; it’s got a spark to it.’ That’s definitely one way to learn.”

As time passed, Whitcraft decided that he wanted to restore the Model AA to its original paint colors and schemes. “As you get older, you start to see things a little differently, and you want to make them look like they did originally, I guess. But it takes time and finding the right people to do it.”

Unfortunately, life often gets in the way of our plans. After Whitcraft’s first wife passed away and he sold their home, the truck sat for a while. “My friend was going to restore it, but he never got around to it. Instead, it sat out back of his house for 15-20 years and rusted,” he laments.

It might have sat for many more years, but Whitcraft’s wife, Ashley, decided it was time to make her husband’s wishes and dreams come true. Her search for the right facility led her to Coury’s Auto Body (Barnegat), one of the five facilities owned by the Gardellas. “We got a call from an engine repair guy about this truck to see if we could help the Whitcrafts out,” Gardella recalls. “We don’t do a lot of restoration work, but when we do, we put a lot of thought and energy into it, so I talked to Mrs. Whitcraft about what she wanted to do and why.”

Gardella was moved by Ashley’s story and her desire to surprise her husband by fulfilling his decades-old dream to restore the Model AA. He got her permission to transport the truck to County Line Auto Body where he employs more specialized technicians with the skills to take on the project, and once the truck was in Howell, he reached out to his paint distributor to secure the right color to restore the truck’s original factory finish.

Over the next three months, Gardella’s team worked on Whitcraft’s Ford in between collision repair jobs, and in December 2025, it was finally ready. “Jimmy [Klimovich] knocked it out of the park on this one, everyone involved cared, and once again, I’m filled with the utmost respect for my team!”

And the vehicle’s owner was equally impressed with the final product. “They don’t make them like that anymore; everything is plastic nowadays, but that truck is solid,” Whitcraft boasts. “It’s not just a regular Model A…it’s a 1928 AA one-ton woodstruck and holds a lot of weight. And now, it’s got a new life to it, that’s for sure.

“If it wasn’t for Ashley, I probably would have gotten rid of it eventually because I was sick and tired of waiting on people, but she found the right people who did a great job. I’d always wanted to get it restored before Dad passed away, and although that didn’t happen, I know he would be proud.”

In fact, when Gardella’s team rolled the truck out for the big reveal, it “brought a tear” to Whitcraft’s eye as he looked up to the sky and asked, “What do you think, Dad?”

That tender moment hit Gardella particularly hard since he had recently lost his mom. “It really struck a nerve with me and tugged at my heart in a way I wasn’t prepared for as I was reminded of how strong those heavenly connections really are,” Gardella reflects. “Something tells me that she was also looking down, smiling and saying ‘Good job, son.’

“We thought we’d exceeded expectations with how we’d restored the truck, but the moment we handed Okie the keys proved it was bigger than that. In that instant, it reminded me exactly why we make exceptions for jobs like this. Moments like that are the real payoff.”

Want more? Check out the February 2026 issue of New Jersey Automotive!