Lars Ekberg invited me to his home in North Carolina to show me his great cars, some of which were barn-finds. As we walked from garage to garage, we kept passing a big old Ford dump truck, nasty and neglected. I didn’t pay any attention to it.
As I was about to say thank you and goodbye, Ekberg said to me, “You know, that old truck has an interesting story. It used to belong to Dale Earnhardt, Senior.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Can you tell me more?” I asked.
“My buddy Jimmy Sides went to school with Dale,” he said. “They were lifelong friends.”
Ekberg explained that Earnhardt had owned the 1967 F-600 truck for a long time and had used it at his nearby farm in Mooresville, North Carolina, to haul around hay for horses. Sides bought it from Dale about 20 years ago to use when feeding his own horses, but parked it in a barn about 15 years ago and never took it out again.
“When Jimmy passed away in 2010, his wife called me up and asked if I wanted the old truck,” Ekberg said. “She gave it to me. The title is still in Dale’s name.”
So there the truck continues to sit, last inspected in 2000. Ekberg is undecided what he will do with the old relic. But one thing is for certain—he owns the world’s largest Dale Earnhardt souvenir.
When seven-time NASCAR Champ Dale Earnhardt wasn’t driving around the track in his famous #3 Chevy, he was hauling hay around the farm in this 1967 Ford F-600 dump truck. TOM COTTER