The Mean Green Moe-Chine
My name is Dennis Isaacs. My wife, Ruth, & I bought our truck in Costa Mesa, California in 2004. I saw the truck on one of the classic car sites and fell in love with it right away. I called the seller and we agreed on a price over the phone. I told him I would send him a down payment right away. My wife and I bought a one way ticket to Los Angeles, California the next day. Later that week we boarded the plane all excited to get the truck. Neither one of us had ever been to L.A., California. This was a nice little vacation for both of us. Well we thought.
We landed in L.A. early in the morning and rented a car. I drove straight to Costa Mesa. I saw the truck in the dark and couldn’t wait till morning. My wife and I rented a room in one of those cigarette smoke stinking roach infested motels you always hear about. The next morning we got up, went over to the seller’s home and take a closer look at the truck. I notice it did need a lot of work but it was VERY restorable. The paint was a faded aqua and white. The wood floor was rotted and the 327 C.I. engine was very tired. I handed the seller the cash we agreed on and away we went with 59 Chevy Truck. We dropped off the rental car and drove the 59 Chevy back to Newport Beach to tour the area. We left Newport Beach, CA. I drove the truck to Las Vegas, NV, where the truck overheated. We decided to stop there and leave early in the morning to beat the desert heat.
The next day we drove through the mountains where we had a lot of trouble with oil blow by. I filled the truck with oil and off we went. We got as far as Murdo, SD, where we had a blow out on the right front tire. A tow truck towed us in and we spent the night in Murdo. The next day we went to pick up the truck at the tire shop with four new tires and away we went once again. This time we made it all the way home to Hutchinson, MN.
The truck already had a 72 Chrysler Imperial front end, turbo 400 automatic transmission with shift kit, a Ford 9 inch 330 positraction rear end, power steering, tilt wheel and power brakes in it when I bought it.
The work on the truck was then started. I had to take the truck to Hoover Wheel Alignment fix the extremely out of align front end. The front end was so bad they had to drill, Shim and fit the front end correctly. A new Chevrolet crate motor 350 C.I. LT-1 was installed, electric windows, sound system, Dakota digital dash, all new factory tinted glass, new oak wood bed with stainless steel strips, all new chrome, LED tail lights and Xenon headlamps. Body work included removal of the small back window roof and then the installation of the new big back wrap around window welded into place. The paint is PPG Hot Hues Calypso Green with Pure White trim. The truck rolls around on BFGoodrich Radial T/A’s mounted on 15”x 7’ & 15”x 8” Cragar Star Wire Wheels. I myself think it turned out pretty nice.
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