Cameos Here comes Hugh in his truck, turning heads. Hugh Cosman in a 1953 Ford F-100, the special deluxe edition pickup, with the rounded fenders, and the clamshell hood stamped from one sheet of steel. The horn button on the steering wheel says 50th anniversary, 19031953. You lose that horn button and good luck finding another one. Other details: the boomerang-shaped ornaments on either side of the hood. Originally they were chrome, but when the truck was built the manufacturer wasn't putting nickel under the chrome, because nickel was a defense-appropriated material. Korean War. The chrome wore thin, so Hugh had his boomerangs sandblasted at a shop out in Roosevelt, Long Island, and then he painted them ivory, to match the tailgate lettering and the bumpers.

Hugh works at Treitel-Gratz, in Long Island City. Its card says: CRAFTSMEN IN METAL FABRICATION PRECISION PARTS CUSTOM FURNITURE DESIGN MODELS Treitel-Gratz also makes sculptures for artists such as Isamu Noguchi, Barnett Newman, and Walter De Maria. Hugh is thirty-seven, and he went to Vassar, formerly a women's college, where they (still) don't offer courses in automotive restoration. In the chain of events that delivered the truck into Hugh's hands, it is likely that he occupied the role of guy D. Guy A has the truck parked in his barn or garage or out back on the lawn, and has always meant to do something about it - slap some putty here, a little paint there, maybe bang out a dent - but never has. Guy B sees it, or sees an ad, or knows somebody who knows about the truck, and he buys it, thinking he'll put a few hours into it and give it a new coat of paint and have a showcase piece of rolling stock. He does some slipshod patching of rust with strips of metal and pop rivets, sees how much more of a commitment is required, and puts the truck back on the market, turning it over to guy C, who thinks he'll devote several evenings and weekends to it, then realizes he's in over his head and throws a tarp over the truck and puts a For Sale sign on it, and in comes guy D. Years may have passed (Hugh's truck was last on the road in 1979, registered in Pennsylvania) and a lot of bad amateur work may have been performed on the truck by the time guy D gets hold of it.

Hugh paid nine hundred for the truck, in December 1987. The ad that he answered described a West Coast rust-free truck. He says that the truck that came into his hands was "an East Coast rust-eviscerated vehicle." Hugh began restoring his truck in the yard of his weekend house, in New Jersey. Then he brought it to the city, piece by piece, and worked on it at night in a corner of the shop at Treitel-Gratz. Eventually, every part of the body except the cab had been removed and brought to the city to be sanded or sandblasted or galvanized or painted. The bed he had rebuilt in poplar by a cabinetmaker. Hugh's association with Treitel-Gratz provided him with garage space, specialized tools, and access to Frosty - that is, Forrest Myers, an artist, car restorer, and metalworker, whose support, knowledge, and philosophical example gave Hugh the kind of head start that most guys (guys A, B, and C, for example) lack.

There is an aspect of friction, though, in Frosty's relationship with Hugh. Frosty's position is that Hugh's truck is a classical showpiece, not a beater. Some months ago, after enough mechanical work had been completed to allow Hugh to register his truck, he ran an errand in it, using the bed of the truck to carry lumber. Frosty's reaction: "He's making a farm truck out of it. He's throwing cinder blocks into the back, and hay bales, a.