In the spring of 1973, my Uncle Jack bought a 1969 Chevy C10 in Massachusetts. The original owner drove it across the country from CA. Inspired to look for a pickup by my father’s 1972 K10 when Jack found the ’69 it was love at first sight. For 47 years and 267,000 miles, the truck was a member of the family. Jack and my Aunt Martha took my cousins Kathy and Pam all over New England in that truck. It hauled everything from firewood to the girls’ college moving boxes. In 1975, my parents drove their ’72 across the country on a 3-week vacation. They borrowed the seat out of the ’69 as it had just been redone and was more comfortable. Jack and Martha flew out to San Francisco to meet up with them. The four of them rode in the ’72 from SF to Ohio. The trip became family lore and Jack always liked to joke about how the ’69’s seat had been back to CA even though the rest of the truck hadn’t.

By the early 1980’s, New England’s salty winters had taken quite a toll on the old truck. My Dad and Jack took it to a friend who replaced sections of the cab floor and bed. He used over 132 feet of welding rod to get it back together and even added half leaf springs to the rear as a supplement to the coil spring/trailing arm suspension. As a kid, I remember countless projects with Uncle Jack and my dad where the ’69 played a key role. In 1996, we had the engine rebuilt. They had pulled the engine when I was away at college and were taking longer than my limited patience would allow to put it back together. I needed the shop to work on my car. So one night, I started putting it back together. When Jack asked me how I knew where things went, I told him I looked under the ’72. “Uncle, there’s another one right in the yard there!” He loved it and repeated it to my dad the rest of the week anytime they couldn’t remember where something went.

Once back on the road, Uncle Jack loved winding up the 307 V8 and no excuse was too small to drive the truck between Maine and Massachusetts. It spent most of its later years in Maine at Jack and Martha’s vacation home on Bonny Eagle Lake. Jack always used to talk about the ’69 someday making it back out to California. He passed away in 2020 and in 2023, we made that thought a reality when it showed up at my house in CA. Kathy told me, “Dad would be happy that it finally made it back to California.”

Thanks to a lot of parts from LMC Truck and a great deal of work, we are making sure that this California/New England truck stays a part of the family!