First And Lasting Impressions

The Joe Bailon ’49 Ford Shampoo Truck

- Rob Fortier

Ironically, it was a shampoo company—Head & Shoulders—that coined the phrase “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” back in the ’80s. While technically true, there is a slight exception to the real-world application of the jingle: of all things, the Joe Bailon–built Shampoo Truck.

For those of you wondering how that can even be possible (or what it even means to begin with!), let me explain. Those of our readers with higher personal odometers (the older folk!) may very well remember when Bailon first introduced his version of an Australian Ute: the ’49 Ford “custom conversion truck” built for Horace Davi back in 1954. Being as Davi commissioned the build to also serve as a work vehicle, its doors were adorned to promote accordingly, and thus the Shoebox became known as the Shampoo Truck in reference to the Betty Elizabeth Shampoo hand-lettered logos. Bailon’s original customizing of Horace’s once-convertible Ford definitely left a lasting first impression on many. So how then can the same car, six decades after the fact, make first impressions all over again? Well …