By Sam Barer

Sound Classics

How could I refuse? I bet if you were in my shoes you wouldn’t have been able to walk away!

The long and short of it is that a friend of mine wanted to get rid of his 1979 Chevy K10 Silverado for about what I have into the tune-up parts on Sound Classics’ Infamous Craigslist Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 project. Despite having little room left for anything larger than Vern Troyer in the Sound Classics garage, I was like Angelina Jolie at an orphanage: I simply couldn’t say no.

The trump card is that Sound Classics is truckless. Ever since the POS 1998 Ford Expedition was pawned off to the dealer in 2006 when I got the new Toyota Avalon, all treks to acquire project cars have relied upon mooching off friends with rigs. Even my wife mentioned it was time to find a “good old truck”.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "Can You Have Too Many Collector Vehicles?" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Bernie has a thing for Toyota pickups. He has four of them. This ’86 is his first, and features a “body drop to the doors, 3″ chop top, supra irs and front brakes, fully shaved, custom frame from firewall back, suicide doors, 4×4 sheetmetal, welded bed seams, 99′ caddy taillights, 18″ pacer affinity rims, tubular core support.” I love this pic.

By David Clarke

highspeedhijinks

Last month in Sutton, West Virgina, Albert Dancy Jr. was shot during a domestic dispute that involved his ex-wife and some other guy. At his funeral, his 24-year-old son Adam thought it was best for his dad to go out the way he had always wanted: buried in the bed of his beloved 1967 Chevy pickup. Not wanting to go into the afterlife unarmed, Dancy had requested his pocket knife and his deer rifle to be buried with him as well. As Adam recalled of his father, “He said it always joking around, but he said it for so many years it was pretty much serious to me…I always took him seriously. It was the last thing I could do for him.” Your can read the rest of the story here.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Sony is featuring this beautiful ’38 Chevy pickup built by John Wargo of The Custom Shop in their Xplod booth.

You know, I don’t think I have shared this photo with anyone yet. I’m sure most of us have seen cars turned into pickups. We have a Fairmont sedan running around town that has received such treatment, and many years ago my friend and I visited a you-pull-it in his hearse. While we were getting ready to leave, one of the guys there noted how the hearse could easily be turned into a pickup with one long cut–he even ran his finger down the side of the hearse to show us where to cut. Anyway, I saw this awesome Jetta pickup last time I was out at the you-pull-it.

Last week I showed you the Dave’s Farm video where the guy runs over a bunch of junk cars on his property with a 20 ton bulldozer. Well, today we came across Darrell’s ride page and we’re kind of confused. That Concorde looks pretty solid. Even if it has a blown 2.7, the glass, hood and other sheetmetal have to be worth something. So why crush it?

Continue reading "Why Crush a Perfectly Solid Concorde?" »

I always thought it’d be neat to have a small pickup. You could haul random furniture and the occasional engine crane without having to make arrangements with one of those friends who’s always getting their truck borrowed—and you wouldn’t have to deal with a cumbersome hulk that doesn’t fit into a standard parking space. With gas being what it is, a lot of truck fans are flocking to small and midsize pickups. But safety-minded types are fretting that these mini-rigs aren’t doing as well in crash tests as they should be, particularly in side-impact wrecks. The twin Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon got a rating of poor, with a bunch of other trucks scoring "marginal"—the Dakota, Raider, Ranger, Mazda B-Series, and Frontier. Only the Tacoma performed decently, and only because they let it test with side airbags. Side wrecks accounted for 9,000 motorist deaths in ’06, trailing behind front-enders. The take-home message: don’t get T-boned. But you guys have already agreed that you’d give up 5-star safety for better gas mileage, and if the general public is anything like you, I don’t think the crash tests are going to prevent little pickups from flooding the market in coming years.

Ken has done a beautiful job with the bodywork on his Dodge pickup, including the eye-searing Mopar Sublime green paint job. It’s running a mild 318 with a lumpy cam, ported heads, and an Edelbrock carb. The one-off custom grille and black-on-lime color scheme lend a classic muscle-car feel to this rig. Nice touches!

Here’s an eBay find that’s a little on the weird side. Up for auction is a "Bambi Sporty," the Argentinian-made version of the German Fuldamobil. The darling pickup version of the vehicle, available in Argentina only, is "powered" by an air-cooled one-cylinder, two-stroke engine. The body is plastic, and despite its amphibious looks, I’m kind of doubting it floats. Bidding is pushing $10K, with the reserve not yet met. Check it out!

Continue reading "It's Bambi. No, Seriously." »

This truck first entered Myron’s life as a pile of rusted dinosaur bones on a car hauler, and wow, he’s done some amazing stuff with it since. So far he’s cut out and replaced a ton of rotten metal—like, all of it—and converted it to a Mopar and then a Mustang II independent front suspension. The custom fabrication he’s done on the panels is really well-documented, and I can’t wait to see how it looks with its paint on. The motor’s going to be a GM 5.3L from a Tahoe, and everything’s all ready to go back together. I’m sure this truck is going to be beautiful. Check it out!