Josh Braun’s Banger Truck
Photos: Chadly Johnson
Text: Jeff “Titus” Bloedorn

In the hot rod world nowadays there are so many cars being built that have "the look".  Many people building these cars go to extravagant levels to get "the look" by a super heavy chop, channel job, or by adding all sorts of special doo dads and rare pieces.  Well Josh Braun’s model A truck from Rochester, Minnesota has accomplished "the look" with some minimal changes, a few special do dads, and a really cool paint mistake!

The mods to Josh's truck may be minimal but the story behind the little truck is quit the opposite.  Josh really hadn’t been looking for a project but back in 2008 he heard through his buddy Kyle that an old timer had a model A truck, and it might be for sale.  Josh, Kyle, and another friend Ryan followed up on the lead and looked at the truck. The truck’s price was fair, so Josh bought it on a whim.  The old timer stated that the truck would run so the trio set out to make it happen.  They started out by towing it with a 4 wheeler, trying to get it to fire, but were having trouble as the truck had been sitting for a long while.  Finally, they got it to start, but it didn’t last long as they ended up running out of gas, so they gave up, and had to load the car manually.  Unfortunately, Kyle tore his calf muscle in the process, and had to wear a leg brace for a few weeks afterward…he’ll never let Josh live it down.

Over time Josh did a lot of thinking on the A, too much, and finally decided it was now or never.  You see, his father had projects that he had never gotten to and he didn’t want to follow in the same foot steps.  A solid plan for the truck had never really been established…Josh liked the simplicity of the stock model A and set about doing research for the future build.   The build that had the most impact on Josh was HAMB member Chris' banger powered model A roadster.  The roadster was one of those cars that had the look, but with very minimal changes.  So now Josh had a plan…a banger powered hi-boy.