Craig Hover's 1963 Chevrolet Fleetside Short Box

"Mater"

We Remember 11 September 2006

# 1661

From Craig :

          Hi. I've been looking at this little '63 C-10 Chevy Fleetside Short Box for years. I kind of like the "originalness" of it.

          The truck had lived its whole life in Harvard, Nebraska (where my in-laws live -- 1,000 people strong). I always saw it parked in the street at the house across the street from them. I looked at it there for years, and I guess the owner would use it to haul trash to the dump in Hastings, 35-or-so miles away. The people were getting older, though, and finally decided to move into some kind of home or maintenance-free place or something. So, they had an estate sale. I had my Mom-in-law go over there and bid for me, and I bought it last year. Now it lives in Kansas City, and after more than 40-years in Harvard, I doubt it will ever return again.

          I'm not planning to do a lot of obvious stuff to it. I just want to make it as nice as possible the way it is. I don't really even want to paint it. Although I'll have to see how bad the rust is under the "patch" panels they stuck on there to see how to deal with that. Mainly, I just want to make it mechanically sound so my son and I can knock around in it or take stuff to the swap meet once in awhile.

          I was thinking I'd like to have it lettered up to look like it was on there since new with the name of my Grandad's car lots that he had from the '30s to the '70s (in Colorado Springs). I have to find someone that "gets" what I want to do, and it would have to be pretty unobtrusive. I know some of the rat rod crowd gets old looking sign painting done, so I'll kind of watch for that. That's my biggest "modification" plan.

          So, it is home now and sort of cleaned up. There's a lot I could do to it, but I'm not in any big hurry. It has '63 car hubcaps, but they were as old and gritty as the rest of it. From what I can gather from the history, it must have come with the painted hubcaps, and these were probably on the shelf at the dealer in the little Nebraska town, so they added them to spruce it up. I kind of like my hubcaps. At least they're the right vintage. If I ever change them, they'll be for the style that would have come on it. I put the trim rings on after I cleaned up the hubcaps.

          It drives GREAT! Shifts nice, steers nice, runs good. Unbelievable. I think it's going to be a pretty good little truck.

          My wife has already named it "Mater."

          I'm glad I found you!

Craig Hover
"Revoh"
Bolter # 11714
Kansas City, Missouri

          Speaking of "found," Craig was at the All Nationals Truck Show in Kansas City / Second Annual Stovebolt Reunion ... and we didn't "find" him until late Saturday afternoon. Glad we did! He won a first place for the bone factory stock class or something like that. He said "It was actually a pretty huge surprise to me, but I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder! " Tooo cooool! ~~ Editor