One of the first things I remember was being 4 years old and playing with toys cars, so I guess it has been in my blood for a long time. When I turned 15 my father bought me my first car, a 1985 Chevy Chevette. I was so excited, and took the car apart, from the body to engine, and made it into a lowrider.....which really made my father mad. But that was what I wanted, and from the start I always liked lowering my cars. Back in those days, since I was 15 years old and didn’t have a job, I couldn’t afford a hydraulic system. So I used the old school method to lower the car down, and broke out the acetylene torch. I wanted a sound system like the other cool cars of the era had, but again I had no money to afford it. So I took the boom box from the house and installed it in the car, just so I could have some cruising tunes. When you are young and broke, you have to be creative and make compromises in order to get something close to what you would really like to have. Of course, what I really wanted at that time was a 1964 Chevy Impala, but I was on a Chevette budget so I did what I could.
Fast forward 25 years, and I am still into cars. Except that now I own Auto Clinic in St. Cloud, Florida, which involves fixing, building and restoring customer’s cars. It has opened up some financial opportunities to fund my passion, so one day I decided that I wanted to find the car I had always dreamed of owning, a 1964 Chevy Impala. However, while looking for a ‘64 Impala on eBay one day I came across a 1965 Chevy C-10, which was in bad condition. For some reason every time I looked at the truck I felt like it was saying “Buy me, buy me!”. So I offered the seller $4,500 and he accepted, then I found a transporter to bring it from Georgia to Florida.
When I received the truck a week later I only drove it around the block one time, then it was back to my shop to start taking it apart. My intention at that time was to flip it and make money. It sounded like a simple, easy and quick way to make a profit. Except like what often happens in situations like these, instead it turned into a complete frame-off project, and a labor of love. That’s when all the headaches, long nights of hard work, and ordering lots of parts started. Myself and the techs in my shop pulled off the body, reconditioned the frame, removed all the old wires, removed the bed wood, and everything on the truck came completely apart at that point. Keep in mind I was also running my business and working during regular daytime hours, so it took me about three years to get it back together. Since I wanted everything to come out exceptionally nice, sometimes that involved taking things apart that had already been completed, then redoing them again and again, to get it just how I wanted.
The exterior now features a very vibrant Lamborghini Huracan Green paint, along with a set of 20-inch Vision Legend Series chrome 6-spoke wheels. You will also find lots of classic style pinstriping all over the truck done by Miguel Quiles, along with a nicely redone wood bed. The truck is now fitted with air ride, so there was a small C-notch put into the frame for rear end clearance, and the Airmaxxx compressor and tank system is on display in the nicely done wood bed with stainless steel strips.
Opening the hood, held up with Eddie Motorsports billet hinges, reveals the 305 cubic inch small block Chevy motor, which is fitted with a Holley Sniper EFI unit, CVF serpentine belt system, headers, Vintage Air, and lots of chrome accent parts. Shifting is handled by a Turbo 350 automatic transmission, while out back resides a Chevy 12-bolt rear end.
Turning to the interior, the truck now has two-tone brown upholstery with diamond patterned inserts on the bench seat and door panels. A set of white faced gauges reside in the billet dash bezel, and a wood rimmed billed steering wheel sits atop the chromed tilt column. Tunes come from an Android audio system installed by Hugo, with a 10.1-inch touch screen interface, boosted by a Kicker amp which drives a set of 6x9-inch speakers in the doors and a pair of 10-inch sub woofers behind the seat.
Once I had a “completed” truck, one day I woke up and decided that I wanted to get lowrider style art painted on the roof and dash. So I found Jason Feltham of Feltham Fabrication, who painted the roof and dash, along with a matching custom fire extinguisher that sits atop the transmission tunnel inside the truck. Of course in order to get the dash painted required that I remove the windshield and then reinstall it, but it was all worth while, and really gives a distinctive look to my truck.
Needless to say, I fell in love with the C-10 along the way, and my intentions of flipping it to make some money went out the window a long time ago. After all the time, effort and money I have put into my truck, I think at this point I might actually be done working on it, and have been enjoying going to various car shows and cruise-ins. When trying to think up a name for the truck, myself, my brother and some friends came up with the name “Cashed Out”, since that is how it felt many times along the way. Of course, as any owner of a classic vehicle knows....there is always something else that comes up after it is “completed”, and there is usually something else that pops up on the always evolving wish list. CN |
