1967 Chevy C10 - Wicked '67

If you readers are anything like us, you're probably looking over the photos of Craig Wick's '67 C10 and declaring that it's anything but simple. After all, that fully polished small-block puts out 690 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque, the top is chopped, and meticulous flames cover much of the inner and outer sheetmetal. But things like this come easy for Craig, because he is the owner of Wicked Fabrication in Auburn, Washington. Wicked has been involved with many high-profile builds over the years, the most recent of which is the award-winning '34 Chevy roadster owned by Jeff Moore that started out as little more than a Jason Rushforth rendering (it can be seen in the March '05 issue of Street Rodder). Of course, Craig never even intended to go this far with the truck--it was his daily driver for six years, and all of this began as a quick repaint.

Craig originally bought the truck in 1992. It was a second-owner, six-cylinder, three-speed truck in pretty clean condition and totally stock. He lowered it the next day and drove it with the I-6 for the next three years until the odometer read 246K miles. The engine and trans were retired, and while the bay was empty, Craig Z'd the frame 2 1/2 inches in the front. He installed a 406 small-block backed by a TH350 and continued to drive the truck every day for another three years.

By then, the truck was really beginning to show signs of wear, so that's when Craig took the truck apart for the aforementioned quickie paint job. He says things got bad when his friends talked him into chopping the top. Two inches were taken out of the front and 1 1/2 inches were taken out of the rear of the pillars, and the rear of the cab was leaned forward slightly. From there, the custom inner fenders were fabricated, followed by the tailgate skin, contoured gas door, and finally, the custom aluminum tonneau. Well, at this point no regular paint job would do, so Craig brought the truck to his friend Jon Byers for a Fine Mist Silver paint job. Jon got equally carried away and made up a custom mix of blue to fill in the flames he laid out on the hood, fenders, tailgate, dash, inner fenders, and even the underside of the hood.

The engine build went pretty much the same way. The displacement is now 420ci, and with the help of Wizard Industries, is filled with an Eagle crank and rods, CP 9.0:1 pistons, and a Comp cam. Craig topped the short-block with Brodix Track 1 aluminum heads followed by an Edelbrock Air Gap manifold and Holley 750 carb. In place of the air cleaner, however, is an air hat that leads to the Procharger supercharger. Pretty much everything attached to the cherried silver block is polished--from the top end to the Zoops brackets and pulleys--to each of the accessories. Even the radiator and shroud are polished.

At least the chassis remained pretty straightforward, save for some major detailing and the Z'd frontend. The 9-inch Ford rearend was mated to the stock trailing arms and the coils were replaced with Firestone airbags. A 2-inch drop spindle was added to the front along with another set of Firestone 'bags. Normally reserved for road-racing vehicles, 17-inch Fikse wheels were chosen and wrapped with 45-series BFG tires. Although the sheetmetal is finished in flames, the rest of Craig's interior is built mostly for function. The handmade dash panel was filled with matching silver Auto Meter Gauges. Craig also hand built the custom door panels and set up the audio components before the '89 Chevy seat was covered with two-tone vinyl and cloth. The combo was carried throughout the rest of the interior, including on one last set of flames on the headliner.

Even though this truck has been finished for well over two years now, Craig still drives it on a regular basis and even uses it to haul parts. The truck even recently made a 900-mile trip to Pleasanton. Now that all is said and done, Craig say's he is lucky to have friends who are such a bad influence.