Thursday, July 9, 2026
By Leland Schwartz
The Red Truck, the mascot of Red Truck Bakery in Marshall and Warrenton, Virginia, started out in life not red, but cobalt blue.
Wow! Who knew?
It’s also missing from its longtime parking space outside the bakery in Old Town Warrenton, and its fenders and wheels have been removed.
But don’t call the sheriff. The Ford Motor Company asked if it could borrow it.
The 1954 F-100 is safe, all put back together, and sitting in a glass display case in the middle of Washington’s Union Station, a few feet away from Jay Leno’s first car, a 1934 Ford flathead V-8 pickup that Leno bought when he was 14 and restored by the time he was 16.
It all started when Griffin Hagerty Anderson — a full-time communications consultant to Ford Motor Company who lives in Marshall — was brainstorming with Ford executives about how the automaker would celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday.
The decision: Figure out what the 10 most iconic Fords ever built were and display them in Washington as part of a “Driving America Forward” exhibit, right in what is often considered the historic front door of the capital.
Among those on view through July 14 are the Mustang revealed at the 1964 World’s Fair, the 15 millionth (and last) Model T, a 1928 Ford Model A Roadster, a ’56 Ford Thunderbird, Ford’s 1941 GP (the Army’s World War II Jeep) and the ’54 F-100, like the one outside Red Truck Bakery, once owned by designer Tommy Hilfiger.
The 15 millionth Model T. Courtesy Ford Motor Company.
“There’s a ’54 F-100 right near where I live,” Griffin remembers telling his colleagues. He said he called Red Truck owner Neal Wavra and swore that Ford would take very good care of his pride and joy. That was back in January. Neal was all in.
“Apple pie and Ford pickup trucks — what could be more American?” said Wavra. “Red Truck Bakery is thrilled to have its namesake 1954 F-100 chosen as one of 10 vehicles for Ford’s special retrospective.”
He also shared a copy of the truck’s birth certificate, which says it was once blue:
VIN : F10V4H19847
F10 – F-100
V – O.H.V 8-cylinder 239 cu in
4 – 1954
H – Detroit Truck
19,847 – consecutive unit
Color: D – Glacier Blue
Trans: Auto 3-speed automatic
Rear axle: 392
Production date April 28th
About the fenders: The Red Truck was too wide for Union Station’s six-foot front doors, so the engineers who take care of vintage cars from Motor City Solutions — yup, that’s a job! — were called in to make it fit.
Ted Ryan, Ford’s chief historian and archivist, who was at the exhibit, called the Econoline (now the Transit) and the F Series, which goes all the way back to the Model T, “the lifeblood of Ford.”
“The Model T was quickly modified by our customers, who would put a flatbed on it and basically create their own trucks,” said Ryan. “So Ford realized that and created the Model TT in 1917, which was a quarter-ton truck that had a flatbed. And since then we have been in the pickup truck market.”
The first vehicle after World War II in 1948 was not a car, Ryan added. “We designed a pickup truck, the F1,” a full year before Ford’s first passenger car.
The company has a lot of classic vehicles. Part of Ryan’s job is overseeing the Ford Heritage Fleet, which numbers about 180 cars in the U.S. and 500 worldwide.
One of the rare things about the bakery’s F-100 is that it has an automatic transmission, called the Ford-O-Matic. Ryan guessed it cost about $1,500 when brand new. The ’56 Thunderbird cost about twice as much.
Ford’s most famous cars? Per Ryan: the Model T, the Mustang and the Ford GT40 (think Ford vs. Ferrari) “would be 1A, 1B, 1C.”
The Mustang from the 1964 World’s Fair. Courtesy Ford Motor Company.
Recruited from Coca-Cola, where he had the same job for 21 years, Ryan has been with Ford for eight years. “So, what’s the secret recipe?” I asked. “Can’t tell you that or I’d have to kill you,” he quipped, adding that “the real answer is marketing and good management.”
Ryan looked around at all the people taking pictures of the cars and excitedly pointing at the displays. “This is exactly what the exhibit is supposed to do, show how Ford is meant to fit in American culture. That was the goal of the exhibit and I think we’re nailing it,” he concluded.