1968 C20 Build

[dagnabbitt]

I have a friend who always names his projects, he has Gertie and Hippo Hips and Betty Boop, etc etc. I just can't bring myself to name my own projects - I can't explain why - but I can't deny it would be convenient when you have several of them like I do. So I call mine "The Blue Truck"; "The Orange Truck", and "The Green Truck", which is actually much more ridiculous than just giving them names.

This one I just call "The C20", since it is the only three quarter ton I own - or have ever owned for that matter. But I'll take suggestions on naming her if anyone has any ideas.

I found this for sale online about 2-3 hours from where I live, in an area of Alberta called Rocky Mountain House, on a farm literally in the middle of nowhere. A friend of mine egged me on to go look at it and came with me to get it: the owner either didn't know much about it or didn't feel like providing any information and we were curious and wanted to go on a road trip. I initially thought it might be a shortbed half ton, the pictures weren't great. When I arrived and found it was a long bed C20 I bought it anyway: he wanted $200 for it, I couldn't leave it there.

At the time I already had two 1967 GMCs that I bought for similar reasons: simply because I could. One was a rattle can black base model with a 250, 3 on the tree, and not much else, but it ran, drove, and stopped. It was an old farm truck from Saskatchewan that I would have difficulty registering, but I kind of thought I'd get it on the road someday. The other one was green, and was a very highly optioned truck with a 327, automatic, chrome package and panoramic window option. The problem was that the motor seemed to be seized. It had 40 year old plates on it so it was like this for a while. I bought it off of a guy who had plans to part it out but he couldn't bring himself to do it, it was too nice and too complete. In my addled brain I thought perhaps I would make one good truck out of these three: the two 67 GMCs and my new 68 C20. I figured that the black 67 GMC would be the "base" of this project.

The C20 had no box on it: but I loved the Chevy front end - I only had GMCs at this point. It was a supposed 292 with a four speed that I thought was pretty cool. It had no keys, didn't run as far as I knew, and the mice at some point moved out of it for something nicer. But I just liked it and knew that I couldn't go wrong for the price I paid for it.