My 58 Apache Stepside

[opiesilver]

Hi all,

I thought I would post a few pictures of my project. The first few pics are of the truck as I bought it. The next few were from about a month later after I stripped it down. A good friend is helping with this, actually he's an old school custom restorer who is just as interested as me in getting this truck done right. I don't think he agrees with me 100% on how I want to do this truck but he's teaching me a ton along the way.

The history of the truck is that it was originally sold in Arizona to a farmer who used it for about 20 years, parked it for 10 years, then sold it to a guy in California who always meant to restore it but never got around to it. It sat in a barn from about 1988 until this year. His kid started to do something with it then lost interest. Unfortunately the original motor and tranny are gone as well as the seat. Had I been able to get those I would have restored this truck to as close to original as I could. However, since I don't have these and don't want to hot rod it and have a SERIOUS dislike of ratrods, I'm going to turn this into a comfortable daily driver that just looks old. I was given a 64 Chevy C-10 frame but have decided to go with an 1987 to 1990 Chevy Caprice chassis instead. I want comfort, handling, modern disk brakes, slightly lowered look (not slammed) and cheap to maintain and/or buy parts. The wheel base and track are almost a perfect fit without having to mod the frame. The only thing I don't like is the tall kick up over the axle on the rear. Might consider lowering it slightly but will probably just change the bed height instead. It may be a truck but it wont be used as a truck again.