Former special operations Airman Jon Huertas went from working on advanced weapons systems to playing a soldier on HBO's "Generation Kill" and he's now a crime-solving cop on ABC's "Castle."
As NYPD Det. Javier Esposito, he relies on the classic police cruiser, the Ford Crown Victoria. In real life, his automotive loyalty lies with his classic, almost-perfect 1960 Ford F100.
The F100 is his dream car. And this resto-mod has personality, eliciting smiles from passerby. "I always wanted a classic truck. Since I was a little kid, that's all I wanted. When I finally got it, I thought, I wanted this all my life, I'm not going to waste it by not driving it," Huertas laughs. "When I drive it around, people would go, 'I can't believe you drive that truck around all the time!' Hey, 'I love it, hopefully you do too!'"
Since Huertas bought it in 2003, he's restored most of it himself. It's a continuing labor of love and served as his daily driver for six years. Even though it's become more of a Sunday car, Huertas is still passionate about that era of Ford trucks.
"The '57 through '60 are years that not a lot of classic truck enthusiasts paid attention to, most of the trucks people redo are '56 and below," he says, adding the body of these trucks are from the transitional period from the bulbous to the square hood.
Huertas was lucky, his F100 only had one previous owner. Although he hired someone to help him put in an independent front suspension, he replaced the engine himself, taking out the straight six and putting in a 289 and C4 tranny, turning it into an automatic, instead of the original three on the tree.
"For driving in L.A. it's much more practical with a truck and for an engine that size to have an automatic," he explains. "Also, the linkage for the three on the tree, it's hard to keep it working as smooth as possible and getting the parts for the original linkage is difficult."