TWO RIVERS, Wis. — In the 1950s, a gallon of gas didn't cost $3.50 and Texaco, Mobil and Sinclair Dino gasoline electric pumps were the standard at gas stations.
Today, they are something car hobbyists spend time restoring to make them look as bright and new as they once were.
Retired construction worker Butch Gulseth, 75, of Two Rivers, is one person who uses his time and craftsmanship to work on the half-century old pumps to go along with his '50s-era truck, HTR Media reported (http://htrne.ws/13wcjlu).
"It's relaxing," Gulseth said. "I can go in the afternoon and start working on something. I had old trucks and stuff years ago. I figured, I liked the thing and so I got into restoring them."
Gulseth was able to do some of the restorations on the crimson red F-100 Ford pickup truck that he bought about four years ago, like the tires. The rest were finished by the previous owner, he said. The truck cost $10,000 to purchase, and is now insured for $20,000.
His garage is lined with models of hundreds of different cars and a few new gas pumps that he's working on restoring. He doesn't take his shiny, gas-guzzling 1956 Ford F-100 on cross country trips, but he has driven it in the annual Two Rivers Classic Car Cruise and has taken it on short trips to Sheboygan.
"In the '60s I had another one just like it," he said about why he bought another vintage truck. "I just like the body style on it."
Gulseth, who has his own small gas station in his driveway, has restored about nine gas pumps. He travels to area farms and junk yards anywhere in Two Rivers, Denmark and even Oshkosh in search of them.
