Sitting in the hospital room as my dad slowly passed away in June of 2022 at the age of 62 from a stroke, it hit me he would never see this truck run again, his first big project he planned for retirement in just three years. In that moment, as the tears slid down my face, I vowed I would get her up and running. I didn’t know how or when. I didn’t know a single thing about cars, let alone classic cars, but I was determined to complete his project.
My dad bought this 1966 Chevy C10 fleetside longbed in the summer of 1976 at sixteen years old. The truck’s original color was baby blue at the time, which you can see where the paint is chipping in places. He drove this truck in High School in the late 70’s, on camping trips, and in the oil field in the early 80’s. When the oil field crashed, he worked in a lumber yard full time while going to college part time at Texas A&M to be an engineer, graduating in 1989. It was during this time he rebuilt the front end, replacing the 283 engine and transmission with a 350 engine and 400 turbo transmission pulled out of a 1978 Chevy ¾ ton. Her color went from baby blue to orange to ultimately maroon, earning her the name “Aggie”. That forty-year-old maroon paint job is still what’s on her today.
In the early 90’s, he picked my mom up for their first date in this truck, to which she thought he was either poor or super cheap when he pulled up in the twenty-five year old vehicle. It ended up being the latter. This truck was a part of my childhood growing up. It was no longer his daily driver after I was born, but he still made it a point to drive her when he could. My most distinct memories are when we would take her down to the gas station so my dad could get his Marlboro reds and I could get a cherry Icee. As the years passed and she was driven less and less, she came up with multiple mechanical problems that forced him to park the truck in 2003, where she would sit for the next twenty years.
Early 2023, I finally decided to make a move on restoring this truck. However, as stated before, I didn’t have a clue on what to do or where to begin. There was a lot of fear and anxiety in the beginning. I worried about letting someone touch this truck, the last piece I had of my dad, I feared she would be ruined if they didn’t have the proper skills or knowledge to work on a classic. But after a lot of prayer and asking around, I found a retired mechanic that worked on his own classic cars. He had made it very clear when we met he didn’t take on outside projects and hadn’t done so in a decade, but he would do some research and get back to me with information on the truck. Two days later he called. He said it was very unusual for him to do this, but God told him he needed to take my truck and would come pick it up to get started.
On March 3rd, 2023, Aggie moved for the first time in twenty years. Despite her flat tires and all the dust covering her, we managed to load her up on the trailer. The next five months, I would spend 2-3 evenings after work and sometimes weekends in the shop with the mechanic working on the truck and learning what I could to maintain her myself. He was beyond patient with my five thousand questions and showing me all the mechanics of her front end. He even surprised me on my dad’s birthday, April 28th, starting the truck after many complications. I cried hearing that motor run for the first time in twenty years.
My whole plan after restoring her mechanically was to take care of her paint and body. I kept her mechanics as original as possible, including no power steering, still a choke on the start, no power brakes, no AC (even though she has vents and had originally come with factory AC), etc. But after lots of thought and seeing another 1966 Chevy C10 recently painted red, I couldn’t bring myself to do her paint and body. That freshly painted red truck just looked like another restored classic, blending in, nothing standing out about it at shows. I realized every scratch, dent, and mark on Aggie was part of her history, part of her story. Every “flaw” made her unique and different from other classic trucks, including the sticker residue on her glove compartment door from when my parents were dating. Plus, I didn’t want to feel like I had to be careful with her. My dad was a firm believer that trucks were meant for work, and that’s exactly what Aggie does. I drive her one to two days a week to work or to run errands, including picking up hay and grain at the feed store for the horses. She’s driven through the pasture and the red dirt of the arena. I’ve added additional scratches and dents of my own, adding even more to her story. I take her to car shows when I can and have loved meeting new people and making connections with fellow car enthusiasts. She’s even won in her class once.
Completing the restoration of this truck was not only for my dad, but for me too. Driving this truck or working on her are when I feel closest to him. The flannel heart on her rearview mirror is made from one of his shirts. The custom classic license plate is in honor of him. His High School senior picture sits on the gauge cluster. And as I drive down the back roads with the windows down, my hair blowing and the music blasting, I can’t help but smile and think, Look, dad, we did it!