Howard Perr has restored his 1954 Chevrolet truck he originally purchased at age 14

Cutline-Body Copy:Howard Perr shows the interior of his renovated 1954 Chevrolet Deluxe 5-window half-ton pickup truck.

Fred Lynch

Howard Perr and his truck both have undergone some changing of color since he obtained the title in 1965.

Perr's hair has transitioned from light brown to white, while the 1954 Chevrolet Deluxe 5 Window half-ton pickup he's owned for 52 years has gone from forest green to royal blue.

The truck's change came a bit more abruptly, with Perr spending $5,500 to have a friend apply a fresh coat of paint to the vehicle, which he originally bought for $75 at the age of 14. It was part of an overall restoration he started around 2012 and lasted three years with a total cost of about $9,000.

It's money he'll never recoup, unless a heartbreaking ending is in store for a vehicle an insurer has valued at $37,600. It can not be recouped only because Perr, a lifetime resident of Scott City, is not selling. There are no dollar figures for the truck's sentimental value.

How does a man become bonded to his truck?

Cutline-Body Copy:Howard Perr shows his renovated 1954 Chevrolet Deluxe 5-window half-ton pickup truck.

Fred Lynch

In Perr's case, he mowed lawns at $2 apiece -- back when gas was 10 cents a gallon -- to save enough money to buy it. He then replaced the transmission, stared at it for nearly two years in wait of his 16th birthday and drivers license, drove it to high school every day, and later helped his blind brother, who ponied up $400 for a new engine after another brother ruined the original, drive it to experience the feeling.

"I just had it for so long it just became a part of me," Perr says. "I just felt like I couldn't part with it, and it didn't matter what money anybody offered me."

This love story of man and metal started one day when an older friend alerted him of his intention to sell the truck.

Charlie Eifert, his neighbor, worked for Cotton Belt Railroad and had bought the truck new, and between the combination of living only about a mile from the railroad yard and then being gone for days at a time and also owning a car, had accumulated only about 20,000 miles in just more than 10 years.

Perr, who already was well on the road to becoming a man of a million projects, still can recall Charlie coming down the street and telling him the truck was for sale.

Cutline-Body Copy:Howard Perr shows his renovated 1954 Chevrolet Deluxe 5-window half-ton pickup truck.

Fred Lynch

"I told him, 'Hey, I'd like to buy that,' and I said, 'What you want for it.'

"He said, 'I'll take $75.'"

Perr liked the style of the truck, and the price was right.

The only problem was, Perr, who said he grew up poor, didn't have $75 for a truck with a bad transmission. He did strike a deal.

Charlie promised to take the sale sign off the car and give Perr the chance to raise money over the summer mowing lawns. Both delivered on their ends.

Howard Perr explains the windshield-wiper motor he replaced for $75, the same price he paid for the 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck in 1965.

Fred Lynch

For $10, Perr bought and installed a four-speed, floor-shift transmission -- the original had a three-speed column -- purchased from a friend whose wrecked truck was headed for a salvage yard.

The installation came just weeks after taking ownership of the truck, but there was a delay in the driving.

"I had to wait two years and basically just let it set and look at it, you know what I'm saying, and said, 'Dang, I wish I could drive that thing,'" Perr says.

When the driving started, it never stopped.

His first drives were to school, and in later years he hauled everything imaginable: 100 cinder blocks at a time, gravel, sand; front loaders dropped rock in it.

Cutline-Body Copy:Howard Perr sits behind the wheel of his renovated 1954 Chevrolet Deluxe 5-window half-ton pickup truck.

Fred Lynch

"Man, I rode that truck hard and put it away wet many, many, many times," Perr says. "It wasn't a rust ball and a piece of junk when I restored it, but it had been used a lot."

While he was in the Army in 1971, his oldest brother, Doyle, used the car to commute to Southeast Missouri State University and burned up the engine. His other brother Mark, a year older and blind since childhood, always had been fond of the truck and paid $400 to have a new engine installed.

"He wouldn't take any money," Perr says. "He's been a part of that truck. I even let him drive that truck years ago. We were out on a blacktop road that kind of went out toward the river down here, and I sat over in the passenger seat and reached over at the steering wheel and he shifted and used the clutch and gas and things on the truck, and I did the guiding for him, and he just loved that."

Perr acquired other vehicles over the years, driving some for a decade or longer, but the truck was a constant. However, he only put about 70,000 miles on the new engine.

"It was my first truck, buying and driving it, but it was my second vehicle after I got something that was a little more modern," Perr says.

And while most of his other vehicles depreciated in value, the value of the truck increased.

In fact, he says, around the start of the millennium, a man spotted the truck in the garage at his home, knocked on the door and wanted to write a check for $2,000 on the spot -- before the restoration. The man was wasting his time.

The truck was on the to-do list, for a man with a lot to do and who can do a lot. A look around his property is a study in fearless know-how, summarized best by his home and multi-stall garage. His two-story home with a full basement used to be a single-story home with a half basement -- that is until he took a chain saw to the roof and dug out halfway under the house with his front-end loader. His handiwork includes spiral staircases he formed out of metal and wood, as well as a fireplace. His swimming pool behind the house was also self-installed, dug with a backhoe that he bought cheap and overhauled the engine. He built the expansive garage, complete with a mechanic pit. He welded together the massive wood stove that heats it, installing an old blower -- it kicks on automatically or manually -- and duct work. He bricked the flue. It all allows the man and his projects to press onward.

His resourcefulness and work ethic came early, and the truck is somewhat of an enduring symbol.

"I realized at 11 if I'm going to have anything, I'm going to have to get out and work for it," Perr says. "And then at 14, when I came across and bought that, I already had the values of life and work ethic and all and seeing what you get when you work for something. That's one of the reasons I kept the truck."

Perr's restoration began in 2012 and included the purchase of a few new parts.

In a sign of the times, he notes the cost of a wiper motor -- $75 -- was the same as what he paid for the truck.

"It was cheaper to buy the new chrome bumpers and chrome grill than to have them re-chromed," he says.

However, he says painting is the biggest expense in most restorations, and his was no exception.

"The paint wasn't real bad on it, but I had a friend who had a '51 and he had it painted this color, and I seen that, and I just really liked that color, so I asked him what the color was," Perr says, noting that most restorations do not use the original color.

The old green truck now is blue, and Perr proudly displays it at car shows with a short story of the history taped to the window. He'll sit nearby with his wife of 35 years, Debbie, and enjoys watching people read his story and meeting them.

"I told my wife that I love her and she's my pride and joy, but I said that truck is my pride and joy, also," Perr says. "I said, 'I'd probably turn loose of the truck before I turned loose of you, but I'd hate to turn loose of either one of ya.'"