The question as posed, is open to both 'yes' and 'no' replies. I said no. I can appreciate a custom truck, but never as highly as one put back to stock. As to the 'they made millions of them' yeah, back in the 50-60s. Now we are down to a few thousand if that.
I boil it all down to effort. It takes a TON of effort to get back to stock. It takes little to order bling from a catalog. I talked to a few people that had customized their trucks and it's usually little more than talking about what it cost, and what catalog they ordered from.
But listening to a guy talk about how he had to search high and low for years, and make trade after trade to get the X part (radio, knob, trim piece) is always a much better story.
Most of the stories about the rare parts for my truck (43 CCKW) usually start with 'I was talking to a guy in England/France/Netherlands...'
I don't dislike hot rods... but I will walk right past them to see a restored truck.
