Steve McDonalds' "time capsule" 66 Custom Camper Build

[55-72 GM trucks]

Hey guys - I've been owning and daily driving 1960's trucks since I was 16 when my Mother bought me my first 1965 C10 SWB custom (pictured). I wanted that truck badly because it was the same light blue and white color my Dads identical 66 had been back when I was in elementary school. So thats now been what - 39 years? wow the time flies. Anyway, as I advanced in age I became someone who collected a few trucks and today I own maybe 10-12 I guess and of those only half run and operate. The rest are partially worked on projects waiting for me to get to them again.

Mike Remley, a guy many of you know well, became the defacto guru on Custom Campers several years back and built two extra fine examples and he made build threads on here. I saw those and became obsessed with having one myself. Through asking around online for tips on who knew where one was, I lucked into a super rare 66 Custom Camper I bought in Cottage Grove Oregon (thanks to some bird dogging by Kelvin Hunt) that was special ordered with a huge walk-in cab-over bed mounted camper body originally that was removed before I got it. It was ordered with almost every option you could get - 327 V8, Turbo 400 automatic, oil bath breather, power steering, power brakes, radio, factory A/C, and even had a glovebox light. When we pulled down the passenger side visor, it had a Chevrolet accessory vanity mirror that says Chevrolet on the glass, and it had a vinyl pouch attached to hold a comb. I was floored. Whoever ordered it had spent some serious money on it. It had never left Cottage Grove and lived its whole life within a few miles of the dealership that sold it, so it was a very low mileage truck and the 327 still had most of its green paint, and the power brake pedal pad had zero wear on it. Problem was, some yo-yo had bought the truck and stripped the cab interior minus the AC and under-hood area they thankfully didn't touch, but its cab was shot anyway from the salty air of living on the coast of Western Oregon. The bed had giant square holes in both sides for gas doors it once had for saddle tanks which were long gone, so I decided to hunt around for a better cab and a replacement un-cut bed or a better whole "patina" body somewhere to rebuild it with.

Fast forward to October 2024 - I had come into some money, and as I often do, I was poking around on Facebook Marketplace looking to see if anyone was selling any trucks that were unusually solid and nice, because I had decided if I could replace any one of my non-runner "project" grade trucks with an identical but better model more ready to drive, I'd ditch the project and buy a better one so I wouldn't have to restore or paint it. In that search, my eyes popped out of my head when I found this truck this thread is about.

This guy in Lima Ohio had just inherited his Grandfathers absolute time capsule 9 out of 10 grade, mint condition, factory paint wearing, 66 Custom Camper with (drum roll please) only 11,409 actual miles. His Grandfather had meticulously maintained it, never driving it in Winter or in salt, keeping it washed underneath after each use, so it stayed 100% rust free and stored its whole life in a heated and cooled garage. The photos you see of it wearing its matching camper were taken from his Facebook ad. Like a total bonehead, this Millenial Grandson could care less about the truck and only saw dollar signs, so he pulled the camper off and sold it separately, then proceeded to pull the 327 V8 out and stuck a freshly built 350 in it with cam and headers and all that shiny crap on it as a means of attracting a buyer and so he could keep the 327. So when I found it, it was a match made in heaven for what I really needed to resurrect the Oregon truck with. The Blue truck was Custom Camper, which comes with a myriad of specially grouped options like a sway bar, helper springs, custom appearance and comfort packages, etc but unlike the Oregon truck, it really didn't come "loaded" and barely had any options to speak of aside from dual horns and a lighted cigar well, so I brought it home and have begun the "build" to match the two trucks together into one dynamic truck. The fresh 350 was sold and removed, and I decided it was simplest to just migrate the Blue body onto the Oregon trucks frame and automatic driveline, rather than go to the painful effort of cutting all the rivets and swapping its 3 speed trans to a correct factory automatic.

So I will upload more photos soon - these are just the "day 1" pics of me getting it and bringing it home. Lots more to follow as I am migrating the options from the Oregon truck onto this body and cleaning it up etc.