1956 Chevrolet 3100 – Dean B.

I build one-of-a-kind industrial and steampunk furniture through my business, Dean Furniture Artist, and I wanted a delivery vehicle that had the same kind of character as the pieces I build.

I didn’t want a normal cargo van or SUV. I wanted something unique—something with history, character, and personality that would stand out just as much as the furniture coming out of the back of it. I wanted people to notice it going down the road and remember it when it pulled up for a delivery.

That’s what led me to a 1956 Chevy panel truck sitting at a salvage yard in Bowie, Texas.

These old panel trucks have almost disappeared. You might get lucky and see one at a car show, but seeing one actually driving down the road is incredibly rare. This one had clearly been sitting for a very long time—the last registration sticker still on the license plate dated back to the 1970s. It was weathered and deteriorating, but that was part of what caught my attention. It had decades of age and character already written all over it, and the curves and body lines of a 1950s Chevrolet were exactly what I was looking for.

Then I looked inside. The large, flat cargo area in the back meant this wasn’t just something that would look great—it could actually work. I could load furniture into it and use it as a real delivery vehicle for my business.

But I didn’t want it to drive like a 70-year-old truck.

My daily family vehicle is a Cadillac Escalade, and I love the V8 power, all-wheel drive, comfort, and the way it handles. I started wondering if there was a way to combine those qualities with the character of the ’56. After taking some measurements, I discovered that the wheelbases were almost identical.

That changed the entire direction of the build.

I removed the original chassis and mounted the 1956 Chevy panel body onto an all-wheel-drive Escalade chassis. The idea became to combine two completely different vehicles: the look and character of a rare 1950s panel truck with the drivetrain, suspension, brakes, and road manners of a modern Escalade.

I’m not trying to turn it into a perfectly restored show truck. I want to preserve the weathered personality and patina that made me notice it in the first place. I want it to still look like an old truck with a story, because that fits what I do. A lot of my furniture starts with old, forgotten, or unusual pieces that I turn into something completely different without erasing the character that made them interesting.

The panel truck is really being built the same way.

When it’s finished, it won’t spend its life sitting at car shows. I’m building it to drive, haul my custom furniture, represent Dean Furniture Artist, and hopefully make people stop and look when they see something coming down the road that they probably haven’t seen in decades.

And somewhere along the way, it picked up the name “Tater.” With the weathered patina, big rounded fenders, and old Chevy face, it looks like it could be Mater’s long-lost cousin. So Tater just seemed to fit.