1967 GMC K20 " The Kodiak"

[dagnabbitt]

I just purchased this via online estate auction, it is about an hour away from the town I grew up in, and about 4 hours away from where I live now. This upcoming long weekend I hope to swing by and pick it up. I have a 12 000 lb winch and a trailer and I will need it.

The truck originally belonged to - and was supposedly custom built by - a local oilfield company called Kodiak Oilfield Services. The company is still in business. Where we are, oil is like apple pie or baseball, it is just everything to us here in Alberta, but even moreso, since it represents a prosperous past that it seems is not going to come back for us. So buying this truck is kind of poignant in a way because it represents a piece of Alberta history... but I digress.

It was supposedly special ordered as a 3/4 ton, 4x4, shortbed. Well, we all know that configuration never existed: there were no 3/4 ton shortbeds. So this is likely a very early shortened frame... an early swapped frame... or who knows. I was stalking this truck online for days, comparing photos of it to other K20s and stepsides, trying to figure out if what I saw was an actual SWB, or just an optical illusion. Honestly I don't think you are a C10 guy until you have done the same thing. Finally decided just to contact the family who was auctioning it to see what they thought.

I spoke to the son of the gentleman who owned it. His dad was a real character and a real car guy, I think. The auction had about 170 vehicles, all his: at some point he simply would go to peoples yards and offer to haul stuff away. And he had some really great stuff, things so nice that they distracted buyers from this item. The son confirmed that it was a short wheelbase truck, and not a dual wheel as one might suppose from the pics. It was built this way so it could bomb through the bush easier and as the company name suggests: bring supplies to oilfields. But he had no other info, and he had 169 other vehicles he was trying to clear out. Very nice man, he says he will help me load it.

The VIN indicates it is a (Canadian) 1967 GMC K20. That is probably a 292 under the hood: if it had a hood, that is. Ironically I have a 1967 GMC hood leaning up against my house that I will take with me when I get it. If you knew what kind of person I am you might rightfully accuse me of buying this just so I have a use for that hood. I can't wait to see it in person. I don't know what I am going to do with it, or even where I will put it while I am deciding. This might be a short thread if I have to get rid of it, but I am not known for parting with anything.