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The Best Christmas Gift Of All Is A Fully Restored 1949 GMC Pickup: Video

Today’s heartwarming news story: check out this 83 year-old man’s reaction when he’s re-gifted his own old 1949 GMC pickup truck for Christmas, restored head-to-toe by his son.

All I got was socks.

Norman Meal, a retired farmer from Indiana, originally bought this pickup from his own father in the mid-fifties. The truck is essentially the same as Chevrolet’s Advance Design pickup of the time – equipped with an inline-6 engine, and capable of anywhere from a half-ton to a whole-ton towing capacity (depending on displacement). But as Autoblog reports, the truck sat unused in a garage for the past 13 years of its life.

So, Norman’s son Kyle decided to surprise his father for Christmas by having the truck secretly towed to a restoration shop and given the full treatment. That is, save for the truck’s horn; that’s an original part. Norman nearly fails to spot the truck in his garage when his son leads him out to see his Christmas gift. But there it sits, wrapped in a bow, and ready to haul once more.

There are few finer gifts than being given the chance to reunite with an old friend, and if one can preserve a classic automobile in the process, all the better. Here’s to many more years on the road.

Aaron Brzozowski is a writer and motoring enthusiast from Detroit with an affinity for '80s German steel. He is not active on the Twitter these days, but you may send him a courier pigeon.

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