1971 Chevy C10 – Mike M.
THE LIVES OF A 71 CHEVY
In 1985, Kay and I restored a 54 chevy pickup and a 55 Bel Air Chevy, and a friend thought we might want to look at a 71 short bed. Key wasn’t thrilled about the truck, but it grew on her pretty fast.
I drove this truck everywhere – to work, to grad school, to visit girls at A&M, to mow out of, and to haul grandkids. It was a great driver. Around 1995, it was stolen out of our driveway during the day. It was missing for 3 or 4 days before a ranch foreman found the truck in a pasture while looking for poachers. It was stripped of everything but the chrome bumper and motor. He found the paperwork scattered around the truck and knew it wasn’t a junker. There were no tires, wheels, seats, windows, door panels, etc. and the fools had been attempting to cut the motor mounts to the engine when they must have run out of gas. We had to borrow wheels before a wrecker could load it to bring it home and a pickle barrel to sit on and steer, and we waited for the wrecker with my .22. It was a slow process putting it back together as there was no insurance, and I was really depressed about it. But Kay finally decided to put a new ignition switch in and get it back in service. We had a mowing business, and this was our mowing truck.
The next life came shortly after we got it running when Kay was rear-ended by a man trying to “beat the light”. The 71 suffered a tailgate loss and some shifting in the bed, but the other driver totaled his pickup. The bed had to be removed and some body work done. We decided to make some more changes then as the inspection specialist always complained about the tight clutch. We put in an automatic transmission and fresh 350 engine. There were some glitches in this restoration, but it was finally completed and back in mowing action again.
You would think all the sad stories are over, but no. One of our lawn customers had a malfunctioning security gate that closed on the truck and did pretty major damage to both sides. Thankfully, he is our insurance agent so that made deciding to start the work easier. Our 71 man is Mike Miller at Miller’s Auto Toys, so it was onto his list once again. A couple of years later, the truck is pristine. There is no rust, no orange peel, and its same beautiful ochre and white color. The interior still has some work to be done – a new original style seat, original radio (which Kay removed from our 70 farm truck…). The truck is too nice to mow out of now but guess what? It is loaded with the equipment, and we are using it every day. What good is a truck when it just sits in the garage? To say the least, it is never left outside nor are we ever far from it when in use. It is one good looking work truck to say the least.
It is always fun to fill up at Quik Trip as we could sell it every day. Women, especially, are complimentary of the truck. They really like it, but the men just say, “that is too good looking out of which to work”.
