1947 GMC First Series Pickup

	Owned by Bob Converse "Michigan" Bolter # 20837 Battle Creek, MI

From Bob :

I retired last year from a local paper mill. The shipping manager and have been in trucking all my life. We also restore old gas pumps.

When I retired, I was looking for something to help keep me busy. I had always wanted just an old pickup to play with. I started looking around for a few months and just didn't see anything that was what I really wanted. Finally in January, I was looking at some trucks in Elkhart, Indiana but I still did not see what I was interested in. The owner said he had this truck coming in from Minnesota and he showed me some pictures. I always liked GMC vehicles, so I said I would take that truck if I liked it when it got here.

We got into some heavy snow storms, had some delays and I figured I was probably going to miss out. I kept bugging the seller. Finally, the truck arrived. I went down and looked at it, decided to buy it, and this was when the fun really began.

This old truck was titled a 1947 GMC but was one of those wartime trucks. So, when getting parts, I needed to get 1946 parts, which I didn't know at the time. I got to investigating and found Brian Lubke had this truck in the Stovebolt Gallery as a 1947 GMC. Brian sold the truck once and "had to get it back." The truck ended up with Dennis Albright who had done the restoration when I bought it.(Here are some pictures of the restoration from the classified site.) It was sold two more times before I got it.

Well, one thing led to another and a good lady friend of mine from Battle Creek, Michigan, Karla Hisler, talked me into another total restoration. She was a teacher at the vocational education center. She has a detail shop where she does minor dent and touch up repair, and was pretty good at painting.

I called Brian and Dennis both and they were very helpful giving me information as parts were not easy to find. We got into restoring this old truck. With Karla’s help, we were able to pull out a pretty nice truck. She had done this before and I was more of a second hand. We were learning as we went.

I love this truck and it really brings back memories of when I used to drive a truck. This GMC is a standard transmission and six cylinder so shifting and down shifting to slow down and the lack of power steering brings back memories. My Grandfather was a carpenter and he always had a Chevy pickup that we used when I worked with him when I was real young.

This truck was kept pretty much original with a few exceptions. One is a modern seat, which Dennis put in during his restoration. It still has the original metal bed.   

Thanks very much,

Bob

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