Tom and Kathy Truhlar's 1972 Suburban

26 May 2005
#1113

From Tom: 

      You had asked about more information about our '72 Suburban. It is real nice -- other Stovebolters will attest to that.

      It came out of AZ and we bought it at the Spring Jefferson (WI) Car Corral in 2001. It has dual a/c, 350 V8, automatic, disc brakes and seating for nine. We've done some work on it over the last four years. The biggest project we did was to convert the clamshell rear doors into cargo doors (found those at Fall Jefferson in 2003 - off a CA ambulance). We tow a trailer pretty regularly, so having cargo doors was a must. This is not an easy transformation to accomplish.

      Here is a series of pictures (before, during and after) doing the rear doors. One note that sharp viewers may notice is the wheels. We stump alot of knowledgeable Chevy people with the wheels that we are running on this truck. We opted for Chevy 60's passenger-car and Corvette style rally wheels - but car wheels will not fit the bolt pattern of a truck. How did we do that?

      Although we keep it looking great, it is a work truck first. We put about 5,000 miles on it a summer towing trailers to various shows. In 2003 we even drove it to AZ to visit my folks.

      A quick side note ~~ We drove our RV down to the Chickasha, OK Swap Meet last week (May 13) and we highly recommend that show for Stovebolters. The prices seem cheap and there are a lot of old work trucks and parts there. They do that show twice a year - the other is October 13-15 this year (yes, that is Thursday through Saturday).

      Although not an old Chevy, we bought another project while there that we just couldn't pass on. We have an old Tombstone Pizza freezer truck with a Ford 1988 diesel under the box. Knowing our business, it only stands to reason we'd rather have something old under it - so we found a 1961 International 1-ton dually at the Swap Meet. It came off the Air Base in Oklahoma City and is very solid. We'd never seen this style truck before. This will be quite a project, once we get it back to WI (we are working on that now).

      Thanks again for the great write-up. We have told many people about your site and have linked your site off our webpage for people to read the great story about our ice cream truck. Also, I was able to get into the forum and read your comments about the upcoming story in the May newsletter/Features. It was neat to read the other great comments people added concerning Spring Jefferson and our product. The BIG BAR is truly a tradition at that event!

Tom
Tom & Kathy Truhlar
Kent's Ice Cream
Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin

      This was truly our "treat" ;) -- The story of BIGBAR and the 1953 Chevrolet 3/4-Ton Model 3742 was in our May newsletter and now permanently in our Features section. It was fun to see everyone's feedback on the story in the forums. Seems like Tom and Kathy have a Swap Meet must with that homemade ice cream bar! And thanks for the inside tip on the Oklahoma City Swap Meet ~~ Editor