“Too Dumb to Know What to Look for”

Sometimes, car restorers don’t realize how good they have it. Dents can be hammered out, rust can be patched, missing components can often be sourced from catalogs or specialists, and parts stores yield mechanical bits. For most of us, there are solutions.

And then you get the outliers. Who among us would continue a proper looks-like-factory-fresh restoration if there were simply no parts to be had? Who would help crowdfund a venture to get vital parts made? Who would spend six years in the pursuit of perfection on a vehicle few, if anyone, in this country has heard of? Who would venture into the world of 3Dprinted parts? Who would do something so complicated as their first restoration project? Moses Thompson would.

When the Tucson, Arizona, resident started driving in the early 1990s, “Nissan and Datsun trucks were cheap and