Interior view of the 1950 Ford F-1 truck owned by Gerry Langlais of Barrington. A recent restoration of the classic pickup cost around $50,000.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

SCITUATE Gerard “Gerry” Langlais is a solid citizen, a dedicated CPA and family man. But in 1994 he fell hopelessly in love and is still paying the price.

The affair started slowly. He was working in Barrington at the time, dutifully conducting an internal audit, and his temporary office looked over the street. As the days went by, he began to notice a sad old truck smiling at him from the yard opposite.

It was a 1950 Ford F-1 pickup and it was for sale.

“It was an absolute rust bucket but still nifty looking,” he said. “I’ve always had a liking for old trucks and you could see the character.”

“My family had a farm and we always had trucks,” he said. “But I’d never seen this body style, the grille with the horizontal bars. It seemed like it was grinning at me.”

So one day he crossed the street and after negotiating with the owner, who had acquired the truck from a farm in Kentucky, bought it for the $1,500 asking price and drove it home, his wife-to-be, Michaela, following along in a cloud of smoke.

(He said he had asked Michaela — they are now married with three children — to talk him out of it, but she said she thought it was “kind of cute.”)

Once home, he had the engine serviced, the brakes repaired and a new set of tires put on and used it as a working truck for a few years. He said he then “garaged it in 1997, got married, built a house and had kids,” until 2005 when he decided he wanted to spend some money on it.

“We were getting through the house thing and had two children and we thought maybe we’d get the truck fixed,” he said. “The rust was getting really bad.”

Indeed, it was so bad that Langlais said he was once entertained at a traffic light by the driver of an adjoining vehicle who starting whistling the theme tune to Sanford and Son, the 1970s TV sitcom about L.A. junk dealer Fred G. Sanford (Redd Foxx) and his son who traveled around in a broken-down truck.

So Langlais took it to American Classic Restorations, in Uxbridge, Mass., and after getting an estimate for restoring the vehicle decided to leave it there for a few months.

Trouble was, Gerry and Michaela said they did not heed the caveats that were included in the estimate. Nor did they have any idea just how big a job it was to restore a vehicle to a “period-correct state,” or assembly line condition.

Turns out the truck stayed at American Classic for three years and the bill ended up being around $50,000. But they have only the highest praise for the work done by Bob Fulcher and his team at American Classic, which took the truck completely apart, rebuilt what needed to be rebuilt, cleaned what needed to be cleaned, painted it and put it back together again.

The result is a magnificently restored 1950 Ford F-1 truck in Meadow Green with an Ivory horizontal grille and Black fenders and running boards. Everything, including Ford’s period paint colors, is original or, as in the case of the tailgate, which was totally rusted out, a Ford-licensed reproduction.

And everything is cleaned up, including the flathead 6 engine — a red, boxlike Rouge 226 that generates 95 horsepower — the imposing black radiator, the three-speed transmission on the floor, an original 7-tube AM radio and the refurbished readout dials. The bed is lined with stainless steel, as opposed to the painted steel of the original, and oak boards.

Under the massive front end, with its wide, open face and distinctive grille, taurean nostrils and massive fenders, the wheels with their chrome beauty rings and white-wall tires look incongruously narrow compared to those on modern trucks of comparable size.

Ford introduced its F-Series of pickup trucks in 1948 — the company is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the F-Series this year — and it went on to become one of the most successful runs in automotive history. Its classic F-150 has been the nation’s best-selling vehicle for decades.

Indeed, Ford has been particularly hard hit by the recent rise in fuel prices and the economic downturn as about half the company’s sales traditionally come from its pickup trucks.

And Langlais’ half-ton F-1 with its 6 1/2-foot bed was the granddaddy of them all. It originally sold for about $1,200, came with a 90-day, 4,000-mile warranty, and was a success right out off the assembly line, with nearly 300,000 selling the first year. Some 360,000 F-1s sold in 1950.

“It was advertised as the ‘Bonus Built Truck’ because you got more than you paid for,” he said. “It was more comfortable, easier to drive and easier to load.”

He pointed out the adjustable seat, which was a novelty at the time, in addition to the rudimentary heater. Ford also offered optional dual windshield wipers and sun visors.

The truck was redesigned for 1953 and renamed the F-100, with the slightly more powerful F-2 becoming the iconic F-150. The F-Series became the best-selling trucks in the U.S. in 1976, partly because Ford made them extra resistant to corrosion. In 1983, the F-150 replaced the F-100 as the base model of the then seventh-generation F-Series.

Overall, the Ford’s F-Series trucks have gone through 12 generations, although Ford announced in June it was delaying the launch of the 2009 F-150 for two months due to adverse economic conditions.

Langlais, 40, is director of internal audit and corporate compliance at Gilbane. He formally worked for Ernst and Young as well as Price Waterhouse and spent many years traveling on business to Eastern Europe, Russia and China, which he said was a great experience but it was tiring being away from the family. “It got old,” he said.

The restoration of the F-1 was completed in May and Langlais said he decided to play a trick on Michaela and have it delivered to the 2008 Newport Concours d’Elegance without telling her.

They went to the show and he said she immediately went up to the truck in all its new glory and started going on about how similar it was to theirs and why was theirs still being worked on.

“Worked on? It’s not being worked on. It’s right there. That’s our truck,” he told her, adding that he has never seen her look more surprised or amazed.

“And he’s not good at keeping secrets,” she said.

He said he loves driving his F-1 down the street, getting a thumbs up as he bumbles along at 40 mph (top speed is “50 mph downhill with the wind”).

“It’s a real head turner,” he said. “I stop at a gas station and spend half an hour explaining this or that,” he said. He said one time a man on a motorcycle screamed “NICE!” as he passed him in the opposite direction. He said he has taken the truck to a number of shows and cruises this summer, but has yet to enter it into competition.

But what about that $50,000 price tag? As a CPA, Langlais hums and haws.

Michaela is supportive. She said the truck is his hobby and hobbies cost money. But she adds that they had been naïve about what it would cost to fully restore it.

“Naïve?” said Gerry. “Naïve? We were very, very, very . . .”

He paused, at a loss for words.

“We were really . . .”

Another pause.

“We defined naïveté,” he said finally, with the resignation of a man who has spent his life balancing books and coming to terms with the fact that nothing on this book balances — except love.

pelsworth@projo.com