A true tale of a country girl and her true love

[4x4s4allie]

True love, you may ask!?! A boy!?! NOOOOOO ... you are surely mistaken ...

My true love is a 1978 Chevy K10 Shortbed.

Let me tell y'all a little story.

Back in 2008, I was living in Manhattan, KS in a trailer park. For any of you news buffs, you may remember a tornado that came thru our little slice of heaven. I escaped unscathed, however, my trailer did not. I was in a conundrum of what to do. My pride at the time would not allow me, a 19 year old rebellious teenager to come crawling home to Montana to my folks, begging for help. I called a dear friend of mine, at the time living in Corpus Christi, TX, a guy some of y'all may know on here as "MrBeast" and told my sad tale of how I was now homeless except to live in a Toyota 4Runner.

We conconted a scheme: I transfer my job to a store in Corpus Christi and hang out for awhile, play with some trucks and have us a good 'ol time. I was going to ride the Greyhound bus down, but got to the station, found out i'd be waiting THREE days to get on a bus. So, I decided to drive myself down to Corpus. Mind you, I'd just worked a 6 hour shift already. Hopped in my 4Runner and away I went. Got to Corpus Christi about dead off my feet. Had us a grand 'ol time down south, until the clutch went out on that dreadful machine.

MrBeast, true friend that he is, concocted a scheme. He says to me: "Allie, I've got a deal. See that white Chevy 2wd sitting over there? Feel like a road trip? See, the truck needs cleaned up, needs a little bit of small work. But I've got an idea. You remember that black shortbed I tried to sell to awhile back? Well, Grandpa bought it from me, but he can't drive a stick shift anymore. I'm thinking this 2wd would be great for him. But I'm too busy to take the time to drive it up thataways. And I don't really need another vehicle (as he gestures across the scattered array of vehicles in the pasture). I know you really liked that truck. If you fix up this little 2wd, clean it up, drive it back to Kansas, and when you've got your money saved back up, you take it up to Grandpa, and he'll hand you the title to the K10. It'll be yours"

Of course I agreed. Later that fall, picked up the K10 in Montana, and due to some tense family situations, left in a bit of an angry hurry, pushed that truck to about 80 mph down the interstates back to kansas. Never once did she falter. I was fishing with some friends a week later, and I decided I really needed to find a name for her. I'd concluded she liked it hot and fast, thus making her a bit of a whore/hooker. And so she needed a name that suited that persona. We got on the topic of gemstones - they always make good stripper names (these boys I was fishing with would know, they're experts at strippers it seems). We had the oldies radio station on, and the song "Ruby" came on. Well, the K10 has a red dash, so we gave her the moniker Ruby.

She's been my true love since the moment I've laid eyes on her, lol. She's been back and forth to Montana a handful of times. All over nebraska and kansas. Truck rolled over 100k miles last summer. I don't drive it a whole lot, I've got plenty of other toys, too, but she is most definitely, hands down my favorite.

MrBeast rebuilt that truck years ago. She boasts a 355 motor (MrBeast will have to tell you the exact specs, I can never remember), a 4spd transmission, and a 205 transfer case. I had some work done to the front suspension last winter and put some new tires on her for the meantime.

Plans for the future involve a 6-inch suspension lift, 36x12.5x15 tires (already in the garage and waiting, thanks to MrBeast), serpentine drive conversion (that way I can get a/c on the truck again), cruise control, and i'm contemplating a stepside bed.