Saturday, May 31, 2008

My Dad's truck

This is my Dad's truck. Its a 1958 Chevy Stepside pickup that we call "Thunderpig".

(Click here for vintage pictures of the truck)

As of right now "May 2008", the truck is powered by a rebuilt 302 engine with corvette heads. It's pretty much in original condition. My Dad has had the truck since he was a teenager.. My parents drove Thunderpig all over the place when they were first dating/married. (Not too long before I was born, the truck had a camper top with a mattress in the back.. wink wink..)

Flash forward 30 or so years.. These days the truck isn't being driven much. In fact, over the past 10 years, the truck has sat in the back of my parents house collecting dust. So we brought it to Utah and are thinking about restoring it back to its original luster. It's time to get the '58 road worthy again so we can start cruising around!

I'd like to modernize the ride of the truck, but still keep the classic look mostly in tack. I'm sure over the next few months we'll have all sorts of great ideas and dreams of what Thunderpig will look like some day, so stay tuned! Once we've finalized our plans for the truck I'll post more pictures.



This is my son Zach. He's 5 months old right now, but some day he'll be driving Thunderpig so watch out!







The steering wheel is quite large, but its necessary since the truck doesn't have power steering.






Beneath the floor mat is a steel plate my Dad installed to keep us from dragging our feet on the concrete.. Also the step has been reinforced with new steel (this was done probably 20 years ago).

This gas tank has only been back here for about 8 years.. The previous tank was rusted out and leaked. While I was in high school we had (2) 5 gallon military gas tanks (jerry cans) hooked up to run the truck.. When you ran out of gas you just switched tanks!

We re-did the seat about 10 years ago, its stayed in remarkably good shape.


8 ball gear shifter, with custom delux musical car horn instrument panel. heh heh.. I made the car horn in high school electronics class.. Dad was able to install it in the truck so we could announce our arrival in style! :) Also, check out the sweet foot pedal!

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