Automotive Exceptionalism

Australia Day BBQ with Porsche Club QLD at the beach, 39C, 102F in the shade and a bunch of blokes still made it in their non-air conditioned cars

Speaking of, I just got this ad on Insta and I have to admire the capitalist spirit shown. I would absolutely pay to go on a tour of communist landmarks in a Dacia 1300, I can just imagine how much that little lemon of a car smells like glue & cigarettes, and that would only add to the experience

Proof that dinosaurs aren’t cold blooded.

He did keep them rather well all things considered. A family friend lost her husband years ago and the back yard was full of these original tarp covered cars that were both rare and unwanted, Ford Capri XR2 Turbo, EL Falcon GT auto, Tickford RHD converted SN95 Mustang, all in about a dozen unregistered low mileage Fords with flat tyres. The potential buyers were all so painful to deal with she sold the lot for peanuts to a local dealer.

Makes me wonder how many similar collections will turn up 30 years from now, sheds full of 1990's tuner cars with Anime stickers and aftermarket bodykits preserved in time. I think at that point people will still prefer the Ferraris.

Since joining OF, I've been wanting to contribute to this thread with a photo of my own car. Not because I want to brag or anything like that, but purely because I see this thread as another avenue of the car enthusiast scene that I grew up in. After many patient years, I'm happy to be able to contribute with a truck that is near and dear to me, my family, and especially my wife.

I was asked on another thread where I posted about the new to me, but back in the family, C10 and @vbrad26 mentioned sharing the story. So, please bear with me on the length of this one as it's a car who's history is intertwined with the recent story of my family, so I gotta give it the space it deserves. For you collectors who enjoy the hunt, I think you'll like the story, but it takes a minute to set it up. I've also added some photos throughout for those that are picture inclined to enjoy the ride.

My late father-in-law was one of the coolest people I've had the opportunity to know in my lifetime. Not because of those things that society tells us should be cool, but because he was a standup guy that was always there for his family and had an incredible passion for crafting well put together cars. At one point, he was a pretty successful amateur racer, a mechanic by trade, and through his hard work as well as being a savvy businessman, he ended up running the operations for a FBO out here in Van Nuys. The owner of the FBO had a pair of sons, who looked up to my father-in-law, took an interest in cars as well. Rather than completely leaving them to their own devices, my father-in-law took them under his wing and helped them either find or create the cars that their hearts desired.

Man, you should have seen some of these cars. He managed to collaborate with some of the best craftsmen and mechanics in the area to create some incredible runners for these guys to enjoy. There was a Pontiac GTO Judge which I only heard stories of but I understand it to be a monster; a Buick GNX that blew the doors off anything I have ever seen; a continuation CSX chassis Shelby Cobra in a raw brushed aluminum with a motor that was like driving a bucking bronco when you were on the throttle but somehow simultaneously smooth on the cruise; and that's just to name a few. A fun side note on the Cobra; the build was so uncompromising to the original 427 super snake that the story goes that Shelby himself was sincerely impressed when he signed the dash of this continuation example.

But most intriguing of all the vehicles to me was a 1972 C10 original short bed step side that he had purchased for himself in the mid-2010s. I'm not a quintessential "truck guy", but there was something about the way it was set up that resonated with me. The car came to him by way of a friend in Georgia that had purchased it from the second owner. In the late 1980s, the second owner undertook a significant restoration / build of the truck where the motor was blueprinted & balanced, bored out a bit, as well as tricked out a few other ways; rear end gear ratio, exhaust, etc., and repainted in a dark green metallic. To the paint purists, the original paint is dark green, so the color is almost the same with just a little flake to it. Here it was when he owned it:

When my father in-law purchased it, the truck was at its stock riding height and something that he and I had in common was that we always liked setting up a car with just the right suspension attenuations. Maybe it comes from a racing background or it’s just an aesthetic decision, I couldn't tell you. So naturally for this rear wheel drive, short bed, step side, my father in-law lowered the truck a good amount evening out the rake between the front and rear end. Took the look from a country hauler that looked pretty, to a truck that people have since asked me, "Is that on a Pro-Touring frame?" I couldn't tell you the exact specs of how much it's lowered or what alterations were made to achieve the stance, and that's what got me looking for this truck again in 2024, but I'll come back to that in a bit.

In mid-2019, my father-in-law experienced some health emergencies that resulted in the discovery of a fairly large brain tumor. After his first surgery he made some decisions to consolidate some things in the family's ownership and one of them was the truck. At the time I was nowhere near being in the position to purchase the truck for fair value, so I never brought up being interested. In late 2020, the truck sold to our local mechanic, who only had it in his possession it a few months, and was then ultimately sold to someone unknown to me or my wife. My father-in-law fought a hard battle of cancer over the next year and half but ultimately the cancer took him from his family just before fall 2021. So yeah, fυck cancer.

During the year or so leading up to his passing, the C10 had become something more of an interest to me as during the pandemic lockdown I would scroll various marketplaces looking for ideas of a fun project when I eventually was in the financial position to have one. In this time the stories of the cars and projects he had worked on became fond conversations between the two of us that I'm forever grateful that I got to have with him, among many other treasured memories and lessons. As I had an interest in learning more about the C10 that he had owned, one of the times we were discussing cars, I brought up the truck and asked him about the suspension modifications. Unfortunately I had brought this one up a bit too late towards his journey and he didn't really have the words any longer to describe how he achieved the lowering of the truck without modifying the frame or raising the bed floor. Albeit small and almost inconsequential in the scheme of things, it became one of those things that you say to yourself "Damn....wish I would have asked him about that earlier on."

After his passing, while I thought about the C10 here and there, I didn't bring it up around the family or voice much that I always enjoyed it. I did lament to a couple close friends that it was exactly how I would have built one and I wish I knew how he achieved lowered setup. A couple of years later, one night scrolling around the marketplaces, my wife saw me looking at other C10s available. To my surprise she said aloud what I'd been feeling for some time, "It would be so cool if we could find my dad's truck and one day buy it back." So here and there I'd keep an eye on the marketplaces for the truck, but with no luck. It dawned on me one day in early 2024 to ask the family mechanic if he still had the bill of sale paperwork or anything with the buyer's info. His response was that he wasn't the one that ultimately sold the truck but that its ownership went directly from my father in-law to the guy who technically bought if from him. I wasn't sure how that worked out but I later asked my mother-in-law about it and she confirmed. I asked her if she still had any of the selling paperwork, but she couldn't recall if my father-in-law kept it and that he was notorious for just throwing out paperwork like this after there was no need to keep it. The sudden hope of finding the C10 was gone almost as soon as it arrived.

Some months later, with my wife, we stopped by her parents’ place to see my mother-in-law and when we walked in she quite quickly mentioned that she had papers on the truck she wanted me to have. I looked at my wife a bit confused but intrigued and then my mother-in-law handed me the bill of sale. There in black and white was the buyer's name and address. Now I had some clues and the hunt was back on.

A week or two later, after doing some research online, I decided to go knock on the buyer's door and see if either he still had the truck or if he could share where it went. I arrived at the house, walked up to the stoop, knocked on the door, to which a short in stature woman opened the door. I shared who I was and that I was looking for so and so who had purchased a C10 from my father in-law to which she quickly replied, "Oh yeah, that's my husband, let me get him." A few moments later the door reopened and the gentleman who had bought the truck re-opened the door. I quickly explained the story of why I was knocking on the door and asked if he knew the whereabouts of the truck. He smiled, pointed his hand down his driveway, and said, "The truck is right there under that car cover." I almost couldn't believe my ears. After all these years, here it was less than a mile from my house.

He happily showed me around the truck and shared that these '71 & '72 step sides were his dream truck as a kid. I shared some stories about my father-in-law and the truck during the family's ownership. It truly was a cool experience to find it again and share the stories with the current owner. As I was nowhere near the financial position of a fair offer for the truck and it sounded as though the owner was in no spot to be wanting to let it go, I simply asked if I could get first right of refusal if he decided to sell. He was truly kind and said absolutely. Time went on and I started a new job later that year that had me travelling quite a bit but offered a much better financial position. I kept scrolling the marketplaces for a car or C10 that I thought would be a good candidate for a project, but I kept coming back to my late father in-law's C10 and how it would be rad to own it...

Periodically, I would stop by and say hello to the current owner and see if he had put in any work into the truck as he mentioned he was thinking of doing. To my happy surprise he kept postponing any alterations due to other projects that took his focus. His apprehension to sell the truck was still quite apparent so for a while, I didn't seriously bring up purchasing the truck. That was until the day after Thanksgiving this past year, I spontaneously drove by the owner's house and saw that he was outside washing what I assumed must have been his daily driver. Maybe it was something in the air or it was just on the heels of a successful year in my job that gave me a bit of a lucky feeling to ask about buying the truck.

I stopped, said hello, and we chatted about things that had been. I worked the conversation towards the truck, and I noticed that his previous staunch apprehension to selling the truck wasn't so apparent. I asked if he'd given any further thought to selling the truck and to my surprise, he had said that he'd been thinking about the fact that if our family wanted it back, he could be open to it. It was music to my ears and mentioned that I'd be more than happy to get him out of it for the amount he had purchased. Also saying that I'd love to have it back with the family by the end of the year if he was open to the idea. We started discussing specifics about the truck's registration status and if he had in fact transferred the ownership out of state as he had been planning. He mentioned that it was on non-op registration but wasn't sure about the title status saying, "Let me check." He turned to go back into the house, took one step up the stoop, and then turned around and asked; "You'll buy me out of it for what I paid?" To which I responded "Absolutely." He paused for what felt like two minutes and said "Okay, yeah, I'd be happy to sell it to you. Let's figure out the title and what is needed to do this soon."

I think I was standing in almost the same spot in his driveway just over 18 months after having met him, seeing the truck for the first time in four years, and not being able to believe my ears again. More than a bit surprised I said "Really!? That would be amazing." He asked his wife to grab the paperwork they had on the truck to figure out the specifics, we agreed on the price and the timing as I was leaving in a couple of days for over a week on a work trip to which we agreed to handle everything the weekend after I got back into town.

Now here is where all the day dreaming accompanied with persistence paid off and led to the most fun part for me.

As I mentioned, it was the day after Thanksgiving when I impulsively stopped by the owner's house. Simultaneously, we had friends and family over at my in-laws’ house. In the midst of having everyone at the house, I had mentioned to my wife that I needed to grab something from our place and on the way back to my in-laws was when I decided to swing by and speak with the owner of the C10 on my way back to my in-laws. So my wife I had no idea that in the time from me heading home to returning, I had just worked out the deal to purchase the truck. I walked into the house and my wife asked, more concerned than anything, “What took you so long?” I then pulled her aside, told her what unfolded, and shared that we’d go back and pick up the truck in two weeks. She was so happy to share the news with her mom and the rest of the family. I think for me it will be one of those times in my life that you hear folks towards the sunset of their time here say, moments like that made the ride worth it.

On schedule, a couple of weeks later my wife joined me and we went over to sign the paperwork, hand over the cash, and took delivery of the truck where it was swiftly off to the shop for some general TLC as it hadn't been driven often over the owner's watch.

It took some definite care and attention to get it running right but after a few dedicated months of sussing out different gasket failures causing various engine leaks, a new carburetor, refreshed brakes, new shoes, and a bit more needed parts, I'm happy to say that it's happily cruising down the road.
If you made it this far, thank you for sticking it out and indulging my joy in sharing a good story. If you're here in the LA area and you see this patinated dark green C10 short bed step side on the road, give me a shout. Happy road trippin' and happy Saturday all.

Thanks @vbrad26, appreciate it! I know it was a bit long but he was a heck of a guy and his story with the truck is one I like to share.