Dave Fawcett is the second registered owner of this 1967 Chevy pickup.
He didn’t have to go far for a title search because his Grandfather bought the truck to be a workhorse on his farm.
The easy part was finding the truck – the hard part was convincing his Granddad to drive it.
The story begins on the family farm back in 1967. Grandpa bought the Chevy for work and recreation as Dave explained, “ this truck spent its whole life on the farm. Grandpa always drove it because it was the only thing on the farm that got decent gas mileage, around 22 miles per gallon”.
The Chevy had a typical farm career so it led a hard life including an incident with a championship rodeo bull as Dave added, “ it caved in the side of the truck. This was a Calgary Stampede bull so it packed quite a wallop”.
That incident probably explains why Dave was cautious when he was working on the farm, ” I was pretty young so I used to drive it out to feed the cattle but I stayed in the back of the truck so I wouldn’t get trampled”.
Dave wanted the truck since Day One as he explained, ” I grew up without money but I tried since I was 16 to own it but there were 10 or 12 other grandsons who wanted it. Grandpa was the most influential person in my life”.
Eventually Dave made an offer on the family farm but it came with a condition of sale, “ The truck was part of the deal. It came with the farm and I couldn’t wait to leave when it came up for sale. I had to have it”. That one transaction put Dave at the front of the big lineup for the ’67 Chevy truck.
Chevy trucks are relatively easy to restore thanks to a large inventory of after market parts but Dave wanted this truck to be close to 100% original. That strategy will magnify the degree of difficulty in any restoration and this ’67 was no exception. Dave added, “I spent a lot of money trying to keep the original metal plus all the wiring is original and so are the emblems and marker lights on the truck”.
This restoration was more of a mild resto-mod as Dave explained, “ most comments are about the fact that it’s not a crate motor and still runs the factory 6 but we added power steering, power windows, automatic and tilt for Grandpa because I wanted him to drive it”.
The project was done fairly quickly as Dave explained, “Trevor Comfort at Comfort Collision did the body and interior and when I got home in the spring the job was done”. The original color was a casualty; ” Trevor was just about to paint it factory green when my wife and daughter picked this color so we decided to go off stock. It was definitely a last minute change”.
The truck is definitely staying in the family “for at least the next 80 years” but Dave admits that the heir apparent is his grandson, “I had 4 daughters so my oldest grandson Carter climbed in there when he was two and touched everything. He’s already started to be a little gearhead. I bought him a sled and a quad when he was one. The only condition is that he has to be 40 like me before he can own it”.
The biggest moment in the truck’s history came when Dave showed the truck to his Grandfather. Dave wanted him to drive the truck on a regular basis but ” Grandpa drove it but he likes it better when I pick him and Grandma up”.
The truck is now back on the farm but for now it’s not going back to work or into conflicts with angry bulls as Dave added, ” Hopefully my kids show some interest in the farm and it stays there forever”.
Just like Grandpa did…
Jerry Sutherland
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