MARCH 2017 MOONEYES: A VERY COOL 1968 CHEVY C-10 RESTO MOD

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Steve White is an expert in 1967-72 Chevy and GMC pickup trucks because he has owned over 200 of them in his lifetime.

 

‘His bright yellow 1968 Chevy C-10 resto mod stands above the rest even though it was originally a 1969 GMC that Steve bought to haul garbage.’

 

 

The truck was previously owned by a buddy and Steve rebuilt the engine for the guy in the early Nineties.

 

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The then-GMC pickup was rusty but it ran like a top and Steve told his buddy he would buy it when the guy decided to sell it.

 

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Steve is a licensed body man with a strong mechanical background so a truck project is well within his skill set. He has done many projects over the years and attributes his car guy heritage to the influence of hot-rodders in his extended family when he was a kid.

 

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The Mooneyes theme on his truck is a tribute to his early connection with the hot rod culture. In fact, Steve said “I was learning how to rebuild engines while other kids were learning how to ride a bike.”

 

Steve added that he had “no interest in comics and only read hot rod magazines when he was a kid”. Those early years in Steve’s led to a long history of automotive related projects- including his bright yellow truck painted in Steve’s favorite color.

 

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The former 1969 GMC is now officially a 1968 Chevy C-10 in the registry with the changes made by Steve and it is a very fast ’68 Chevy. Steve used a 355 small block Chevy engine in the truck and used to run a 250 shot of NOS on the track.

 

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The result was a 12 and a half second truck that could hit 112 mph in a quarter mile. Steve has backed off a little on the truck’s performance off the track where it does not need a nitrous boost to go fast.

 

His small block Chevy is bolted up to a Saginaw 3-speed manual transmission donated by a Chevy Vega that was sitting on its side at a neighbor’s farm. Steve offered the guy 50 bucks for the tranny and the farmer accepted the price if Steve removed it.

 

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The transmission would appear to be an unlikely addition to a performance build, but Steve explained how the first low gear ratio in the Vega tranny offered a good base for a quarter mile launch when combined with the 4:10 posi rear end.

 

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Steve is a big fan of manual transmissions and prefers to use them in his builds, even though automatics are more efficient in his opinion.

 

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These days the Chevy is lightly used by Steve for special events like car shows and 100-foot shootouts. He likes to drive his truck to shows and finds the truck to be fairly comfortable at highway speeds, given the low gears in the rear end.

 

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It will more than keep up with the fastest traffic on a highway and runs at about 3600 rpm at higher speeds.

 

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We had one final question for a man who has owned over 200 of these trucks:

 

Do you plan to keep this one?  Steve’s answer: “They’re going to bury me in it”. Good answer.

 

Jim Sutherland

 

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