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Most collector trucks retire to a life of parade duty and county fairgrounds. This one retired to a job. The 1931 Ford Model AA 1-1/2 Ton Sinclair Tanker currently bidding without reserve on Hagerty Marketplace spent its most recent chapter as a rolling private fuel depot, quietly solving a problem that a city council had refused to solve on paper.
Denied A Fuel Tank, He Bought A Fuel Truck
The backstory comes straight from the consignor, Broad Arrow senior specialist Ramsey Potts, who posted it in the listing's comment section. The truck's late owner kept 24 collector cars in a facility outfitted with a soda fountain and a vented cigar lounge, and he wanted a supply of ethanol-free 93 octane on hand so nothing in the collection ever had to drink pump gas. He asked his local city council for permission to install a 150-gallon storage tank. The council said no.
So he bought a tanker instead. His fabricator plumbed the Model AA with lines, a filter and a working electric pump, and the truck sat in the garage holding roughly 115 gallons of good fuel, topping off whatever was going out that weekend. It is one of the more elegant end-runs around a zoning decision in recent memory, and it is worth noting the tank is empty now: the crew reportedly drained it into the other 23 cars before they shipped to Monterey, where Broad Arrow sold them at The Quail. This is one of three lots left from the Casa Bella Macchina Collection, all offered at no reserve.
What The Truck Actually Is
Ford built the Model AA from 1927 through 1932 as the heavy-duty companion to the Model A, and it was less a finished vehicle than a foundation. Ford supplied the chassis, cab and running gear; independent body builders supplied everything behind the seat. That is why surviving AAs turn up as dump trucks, stake beds, wreckers, buses and, in this case, tankers, which were the machines that pushed horse-drawn tank wagons out of the fuel delivery business.
Underneath, it is honest 1931 hardware: a 200.5-cubic-inch L-head inline-four rated at 40 horsepower, a four-speed manual gearbox, a heavy-duty ladder frame, semi-elliptic leaf springs at both ends, worm-and-sector steering and mechanical drums at all four corners. Potts is candid about what that adds up to behind the wheel, describing it as "quite the workout" and not something you want to drive far or fast.
The three-compartment tank body was likely built by the Brown Sheet Iron & Steel Company of St. Paul, Minnesota, and mounted on a chassis assembled in mid-1931. It sits on ash hardwood supports with side shelves and brass fuel valves at the rear, and it wears Sinclair Oil's green-and-red livery. The seller reports a complete engine rebuild and a professionally restored interior done to period-correct spec. Disclosed flaws are refreshingly minor: a paint bubble on a running board, and no odometer. Chassis number AA4865762 carries a clean Pennsylvania antique title in the seller's name.
Where The Market Sits
Pinning a number on a truck like this is harder than it looks, and the Hagerty Valuation Tools show why. The Price Guide tracks the 1/2-ton Model A truck in detail but does not carry a separate line for the heavier 1-1/2 ton AA commercial chassis, which means buyers of purpose-built AAs are working almost entirely from comparable sales rather than a published band.
The 1/2-ton numbers still frame the neighborhood. Hagerty currently puts a 1931 Model A closed-cab pickup at $19,400 in #3 Good condition, off 2.5 percent in the most recent revision, with roughly $20,100 typical for an average-spec driver. Volume is healthy rather than frothy: 187 examples have crossed public auction blocks over the last three years, with results running from $896 for a project to $77,000 for a standout, and the most recent recorded sale landing at $23,100 on August 14, 2026.
Commercial AAs generally trade below restored light pickups because they are bulkier, slower and harder to store, but liveried period tankers are their own category. Branding is the variable. A truck wearing correct Sinclair colors is buying attention at a fuel stop, a museum lobby or a dealership showroom, and that pulls in bidders who are not otherwise shopping prewar Fords at all. At the $14,000 high bid across 14 bids where this one currently sits, with nine days to run and no reserve to clear, the truck is still trading under the guide value of a good 1/2-ton pickup, which is not where these usually finish.
Worth Watching
Bidding closes Friday, August 28 at 2:05 p.m. EDT, and the truck is in Savannah, Georgia, viewable by appointment at Hagerty Garage + Social. Broad Arrow, a wholly owned Hagerty subsidiary, is handling the transaction on the seller's behalf.
If prewar Ford commercial iron is your thing, we have been down this road before: a Model AA that fired back to life after 30 years of sitting is a reminder of how stubbornly durable these things are, and a restored 1930 Model AA truck shows what the platform looks like in conventional pickup form. For the lighter, prettier end of the same family, there is the 1931 Model A roadster pickup, and for the version that trades originality for horsepower, this 327-powered '29 Ford pickup makes the opposite argument entirely.
Images and listing details courtesy of Hagerty Marketplace.
