BY NICHOLAS SPANGLER

  In the narrowest sense of automotive history, the 1951 Chevrolet 3100 Series pickup is insignificant.

  ''There wasn't a vehicle redesign or even sheet-metal changes that year,'' said Michigan-based Chevrolet archivist Jennifer Knight, who identified -- via photographs that ran nationwide -- the year and model of the green truck used by 12 Cubans to flee the island.

  But even the dullest vehicle attracts interest when it is apprehended floating in the middle of the Florida Straits, as this one was more than two weeks ago, bearing the 12 Cuban migrants.

  And when the U.S. Coast Guard, citing safety concerns, removes the migrants and then sprays the vehicle with machine-gun fire, causing it to blow up and sink, it
  becomes the topic of office chat and Internet message board debates.

  Should the ingenuity that made a half-ton truck float be rewarded with a one-way ticket back to Cuba? How seaworthy is a '51 Chevy? And was it really necessary for the Coast Guard to blow up said vehicle?

  ''Whoever gave the order to scuttle this thing needs to be court-martialed,'' Terry of Gainesville wrote on Yahoo's Chevrolet truck message board. ``Ole Chevy and GMC trucks rule!''

  ''What a shame,'' wrote Nate, no address given. ``I was thinking it needed to go into the Chevy museum.''

  Ira Shapiro, vice president of the Antique Automobile Club of America, Florida Chapter, agreed. ''At least they could have towed it back in,'' he said when reached by phone Friday. "Some collector would have paid money for it, and the government would have recouped some money.''

  The truck was spotted July 16 by a U.S. government plane 40 miles south of Key West, in a heavily traveled shipping lane. It had propellers and was kept afloat on pontoons made from 55-gallon drums. The Coast Guard returned the migrants to Cuba a few days later.

  In 1951, Chevrolet rolled out more than 200,000 half-ton pickups; a brand-new 3100 model could be had for about $1,400. Today that '51 Chevy pickup in decent condition goes for about $7,775.

  This particular truck, had it survived its voyage, probably wouldn't have fetched that much. It was well worn and likely drove through this last half-century with a mishmash of scavenged parts.

  ''That'll decrease the value,'' said Steve Ferguson, an appraiser for the National Automobile Dealers Association, which of late has expanded its province. (''If it rolls, floats or flies, we value it!'' is the new motto.)

  "In a collector's mind, he's looking for authenticity of the parts, matching numbers, everything original.''

  `THAT'S NEAT'

  But the truck lovers were thinking about a different kind of value in this case. ''It's fantastic, the equipment they keep running,'' said Frank Fitzgerald, an automobile club member and an administrator in the Miami-Dade school system's vocational division. ``And they just basically built an amphibian. I think that's neat.''

  Was the drive shaft the primary means of propulsion, Fitzgerald wondered, and were propellers hooked to the wheels off the differential? Did the truck have a conventional dual-spring chassis or a torqued tube on the rear end? Did the truckers use the wheels as reverse rudders or hang a piece of plywood off the back?

  Ingenious, maybe, but that's not the point, said Lt. Tony Russell, a Coast Guard spokesman in Miami. ''People are looking at this in a creative light,'' Russell said. "But this thing is not designed as a boat. It's a truck.''

  Capsizing in the fast-moving Gulf Stream could have meant disaster for all aboard, he said, and certainly the thing was too unwieldy to tow into port.

  So the Coast Guard trained a 25mm machine gun on it and shot it down. The gasoline floated up to the surface, where it evaporated, Russell said.

  Maybe that's the case -- but maybe not, said Joe Murphy of the Ocean Conservancy. ``I don't think it all would. The oil from the Exxon Valdez certainly didn't evaporate.''

  A FREEDOM ISSUE

  The truck lovers did not consider such tit-for-tat matters; instead, they contemplated human freedom and potential.

  ''We have the freedom to sit around and worry about who's the best vendor for our old trucks,'' Tom Caperton of Whiteville, N.C., said in a posting on Yahoo. "And these folks risk everything for the freedom to just say what they think.''

  Terry of Gainesville was similarly moved. ''I don't know which is the biggest tragedy, sinking the truck boat or sending the guys that are bright enough to pull this off
  back,'' he wrote. ``I could choose 12 people right here in the office that I'd gladly trade for these guys (and the truckboat of course).''

  The Chevy sank down, down, 6,000 feet down, to stygian depths untouched by light or warmth. Tiny shrimps and tube worms will nose about its remains. It will stay there forever, most likely.

  Who would want to salvage a beat-up truck?