Not one - but two - of Bill's Ford F150s

While most of the collection here at Bill Richardson Transport World is made up of classic vehicles, there are a couple of trucks that may seem a little out of place. But anybody from Invercargill who saw Bill driving around will know exactly why we have two Ford F150s in our collection. They’re Bill’s personal vehicles – and there’s a pretty sweet story about why he had a pair of them.

Bill loved his Fords.

(We quite frequently get asked about why there is not a single Holden on display within the collection – if you know, you know!)

Bill especially loved his original F150, a bright red beauty reminiscent of his transport company’s fleet of vehicles. And he absolutely loved to drive around with his two grandsons, Harrison and Cameron.

“Dad absolutely loved that truck, and when my boys were little the three of them would drive around together all the time. They all spent a lot of time in that truck,” Bill’s daughter Joc says.

Harrison and Cameron loved tripping around with their grandfather, too. In fact, they loved going for rides with Bill so much that it was practically a nightly ritual for the two boys to clamber up onto the red truck’s back deck, and jump down to the street – the boys had hours of fun climbing and jumping, and Bill had hours of fun watching his little grandsons enjoy themselves.

But then Jocelyn and her husband Scott O’Donnell had another baby – their daughter, Isabella, came along – and there was not enough room in the red F150 to fit three car seats.

“There was nothing else for Dad to do, except get a bigger truck,” Joc says.

“That’s how he ended up with his 2003 Ford F150 Heritage model.”

But, in true Bill fashion, he couldn’t bear to part with his original.

Bill bought this centennial-anniversary make of the F150 new in August 2003. It is a little bit different as it was a special order for Bill: it includes a step side well deck, which wasn’t normally available on this particular model.

The F-series replaced the car-based pickup line introduced by Ford in 1942. They were designed solely as trucks, with different styles including pick-up, cab-over-engine, conventional, truck and school bus body styles and are Ford’s best-selling vehicle in the United States. The 5.4 litre overhead valve V8 is a 2003 Heritage model. The anniversary edition of the truck was given a bit of a design makeover. This particular model is more rounded than previous versions, and also boasts an improved fuel economy as well as a lighter chassis.

And, of course, room for three grandchildren’s carseats.