14 January 2013
# 3002

	Owned by Victor Allen "victorallen" Bolter # 31361 Missouri

1965 Chevy 1/2-Ton Short Bed Custom

"Tanner's '65"

More pictures of my old truck on Photobucket

Join the discussion about this truck in the DITY Gallery

From Victor :

This is the history of a dark green 1965 Chevy short bed custom cab truck that my Dad's Brother bought new in 1965. My Uncle kept it for two years and then sold it to a different brother, my Uncle Bob.

I'm a year older than this truck and have always been a gearhead. When I was about 14 or 15 years old I wanted this thing so bad I couldn't stand it. What kid wouldn't have wanted a short bed custom cab with all the chrome? Ha.

Bob lived about 30 miles away on a farm and we would visit him a couple times a month. Occasionally, I would have my Dad ask Uncle Bob to sell the truck "to me." The answer was always "No!"

In 1982, the year I graduated high school, Bob bought a brand new truck and I thought I'd for sure get my hands on the old truck then. He said he was going to keep it around because he didn't want to haul anything in his new truck.

As time went by, I had pretty much given up on the truck and had owned a few hot rods and other trucks so I had things to pacify my interests.

My Dad passed away in 1988 and one day that Fall, out of the blue, Bob called and said he was done with the old truck and asked if I was still interested in it. Although it was considerably more weathered than when I first had a craving for it .... of course I still wanted it! Out of fairness I gave him more than he asked and took it home. The truck still had all the original paint.

Originally, I was just going to paint it and make a driver out of it. But after stripping it and replacing the rocker panels, it kind of got shoved to the back burner for a few higher priority projects. Over the next several years, the old truck sat in a shed and I'd start it from time to time.

In 1996 along came Tanner, my Son. From the time he was big enough to talk he would say this was "his" truck. I'm not sure why he picked this old dusty truck out in the shed over some of the shiny stuff but he did. So I figured for all intents and purposes it was "Tanner's truck."

Partially for that reason, I left the truck as it was, in case some day Tanner might want to actually do something with it. But as he got older, he didn't have a lot of interest in vehicles, probably because he basically grew up in the shop and at the drag strip and was burned out at a young age,

Four years ago, when Tanner was 12, we had been to a car show. Afterwards, he mentioned that he wanted to start working on the old truck. I didn't think he was serious but he would bring it up every little bit over the next few weeks. I knew with my schedule this would be a long term project and I told him that if we did start it, there were two stipulations. One, if we started it we were going to eventually finish it. Two, if he didn't do a fair amount of the work himself, it was mine.

So, eventually we got around to taking it apart and are in the process of doing the paint and bodywork now.

Here's a link to some pictures at Photobucket to kind of show where we are in the restoration project. Although it doesn't look like it, we plan on having it completed the Spring of 2013.

Victor & Tanner

Victor has done a great job adding details of this old truck restoration in the DITY Gallery and in his Photobucket album - lots of extra pictures! Go check out their progress. Any and all questions welcome! If you post in the forum, others can share in the discussion. Thanks ~ Editor

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