It’s hard to ignore the influence of Sam Walton over the retail success story known as Walmart. The richest man in America for a brief period of time, Walton also happened to be a rather humble individual in many aspects. Take, for instance, his 1979 Ford F-150 bought for the purpose of driving from store to store.
An exact replica of that truck has stopped by Jay Leno’s Garage, and on the screen of that laptop in the bed of the old-school workhorse, you will notice the real deal behind the Alan Dranow. The director of the Walmart Heritage Museum said that Sam bought his pickup “right off the lot. He was not a very particular man in regards to amenities,” which says a lot about the founder of the Walmart empire.
Alan also highlights an urban legend about touching the door handles of Sam’s truck. To the point, word has it that anyone who does it will be given the gift of frugality. You know, “you’ll learn to manage your business the way that Sam did.”
Business management – especially when it comes to retail – couldn’t be more different today, though. We live in a day and age where online is king and Amazon thrones over Walmart with a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion. Sam’s pride and joy is an established player in this segment, which is why the profit margins are low and why revenue by itself is a useless measure of market cap.
Alan, Leno, the replica, and the original truck are joined by an all-new Ford F-150 modified to mirror the design of Sam’s workhorse, sporting chrome hub caps complemented by steel wheels and a two-tone paint job that combines a luscious shade of red with white on the sides. It’s “got every option on it,” apparently, including dog boxes in the bed just like the original from the late ‘70s. Something that it doesn't have is teeth marks on the steering wheel, coming courtesy of Sam's dog.
A huge slice of Americana, the retail king’s truck still shows 65,000 miles as it did in 1992 when Sam died.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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