1971 Chevrolet C10 - Seizing the Moment

This story starts out like one of those typical original-owner car stories. It begins back in 1990 when I had a yearning for a truck and couldn't make myself go buy a new one. So I got the grand idea to build a classic that would be as good as new. Well, the biggest problem I had at that point was I didn't have a truck to start with. My truck passion through the years has always been the '67-72 pickups and Suburbans; I've had somewhere between ten or twelve. I spent my early formative years riding around in them with my dad and grandpa, which may explain why they are special to me.

Here's where this story gets corny. My town has the typical "old guy" that drives the cherry truck around town, and, every time you see him, you hit him up about selling his baby and he just laughs and says, "Never! I'm going to fix it up someday." Well, one day I saw him driving a new S-10, so I took a cruise past his house and there was his old truck sitting in a puddle of oil and flat tires--just as all truck freaks like to see their next victim. So I pulled in and proceeded to talk him into selling it to me.

Now that it was mine, I proceeded to clean, tune, and, of course, lower it all in the first week. But it still smoked, rattled, and squeaked. That's when I decided to tear it down and get with it. First came off the nose, then the bed, and so on and so forth until all I had was a cab sitting on a rolling chassis. All the sheetmetal went piece by piece to my buddy's body shop for their professional rubbing and touching. By the way, the only original body part that wasn't reused was the tailgate. Luckily I was able to find an excellent replacement at my family's business, Pasco Auto Wrecking. During the time the sheetmetal was in for paint, I cleaned and rebuilt the front and rear suspension, as well as the rear axle, and I C-notched the rear frame.

Along with the physical work, searching for parts was another job I found to be a lot of fun. In my search, I found a factory tilt steering column, factory AM/FM radio, a factory-installed tach, and an original pair of CST door panels. After finding these items, the rebuild seemed to be taking a higher level, so I broke down and bought a new grille, moldings, carpet, etc.

This was all approximately taking place during 1992, so after all the finishing touches were done, it was basically a restored truck topped off with a whopping set of 15-inch Rodlites and a conservative lowered stance. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, and it looked right for the time. It was long after that I had started a family, and baby seats and hot rods don't seem to work too well together. So unconsciously, the truck got pushed aside and was only driven once or twice a year.

Finally in 2002 I decided to put the pickup back into service. The body and paint were still in great shape, so I concentrated on the mechanicals. I tore into the engine and stroked it to 383 ci and topped it with Vortec heads with Crane roller rockers and an Edelbrock air gap intake with an old-school Holley carb. I tweaked the Turbo 350 with a shift kit and a stall converter. A new 3.42 limited slip for the rearend was added to help plant the new power to the ground.

The next leap into the new millennium was the installation of the Air Ride 'bags and the big-and-bigger hoops along with four-wheel disc brakes. Probably the biggest challenge of all the upgrades was the idea that I still didn't want to change the overall clean, original look of the truck. This meant I had to do the entire air ride install underneath so nothing could be seen; man, that was a lot of creeper time.

All in all, the best thing I ever did was to keep it simple: no fancy stripes or two-tones. I'm grateful that the original owner gave me the chance to make "his" truck "my" truck. I recently went to his home to show him the truck and share some of the stories with him. Unfortunately, I found out that he had recently passed away. I think that he would have been very proud!