After helping his dad, Pete, build a '39 Chevy coupe a few years back, Brian Sabo came down with a terrible case of "roditus", otherwise known simply as the `bug" to the rest of us. Fortunately, in this particular instance, Brian wasn't able to shake what he'd contracted, and before long, his condition eventually made a turn for the best, ultimately morphing itself into a '40 Chevy pickup--or at least pile of parts that were reported to be that of an early truck.
What Brian and his father originally started with resembled nothing like the gem you see pictured here--matter of fact, the truck was scattered between two barns, totaling over 60 individual pieces. The younger Sabo recalls, "When we'd loaded everything on the trailer, it looked more like a pile of junk on its way to the scrap yard!" But putting the existing pieces of the puzzle back together would not turn out to be the hard part, rather, filling in the missing pieces with real steel--replacement or repop. Luckily, fiberglass would not be ruled out as an option, and with companies like Pro's Pick (who offer both), that option would be taken advantage of when the time came.
In the meantime, however, the Sabos set their sights a bit lower--below the exterior, that is. The chassis was taken to Wayne Dysert Customs for the full redo: Heidts IFS, a Chassis Engineering parallel-leaf kit, etc. A Street & Performance-prepped LT1 backed by a 4L60E yanked from a mid-'90s Caddy would fill the void left from the pre-existing 216 and manual trans with the aid of fully boxed framerails.
With a rolling foundation complete, Yeager Custom Body & Paint would be called upon to handle the external resurrection chores. From the "one-piece" stock hood all the way back to the Pro's Pick bed/fenders/tonneau assembly, the entire ensemble was coated in House of Kolor's Blue Blood Red (by Brian Yeager). Contrast by a set of 17-inch Boyds, the monotone look is anything but overpowering, as the natural artistic details of the truck stand out just as they did decades prior.
Finally, Krist Kustoms tackled the interior of the cab, detailing everything in similar single-tone fashion, but instead relying on a "light neutral" color. Seating is in the form of a RodDoors custom bench; steering is handled by an ididit column topped with a Colorado Custom wheel; and the truck's vitals are displayed via a Dakota Digital cluster.
In just under two year's time, the father-and-son team of Brian and Pete Sabo were not only able to turn a pile of junk into a pickup with pride, they successfully passed the rod gene from one generation to the next.