Car Star Award on Category Classic for May 13th-19th 2007

Dyana Larzo

I’m skipping the weekly links this week because I found a Car Star for this week that is so awesome that it deserves a post all its own.

(click to go to the full gallery of pics)

I found this vehicle last year when I joined the 67-72ChevyTrucks.com message board. Since they have a great 73-87 Chevy truck section, I generally hang around in there. When I saw the truck of the guy called N2TRUX, I thought it was one of the coolest rides I’d ever seen. Last week I asked N2TRUX (also known as Ken McAvoy) if I could feature his truck as this week’s Car Star, and he agreed. Matter of fact, he had a story prepared for when he was featured in Classic Trucks magazine last year.

Here’s Ken’s story:

Internet Classic

Ken McAvoy

N2TRUX

Every custom truck has a story, and this 77 Chevy Cheyenne is no different. Unlike the daily driver drone trucks that get you back and forth to work or school, custom trucks have a personality. Most trucks are bought from a new auto dealer, or the local used truck emporium. They get a few basic bolt-ons, and then go about the daily grind of being transportation pretty much unnoticed.

Custom trucks are usually different from the beginning. They always seem to have a story to go with them. For some the story begins in a farmer’s field or barn. For others it was bought new and passed through generations of a family until it was time for a rebuild. The scenarios are endless, but there is almost always a story.

Mine begins innocent enough. I wasn’t looking for a project, because I already had one. I bought a really clean 82 C/K 2wd Blazer five years ago, and although the transformation to custom truck has been very slow, it is finally starting to show signs of real progress. But that is another “custom truck “ story.

This story begins as I was wasting away another evening relaxing and cruising the net. One of the websites that I frequent is www.67-72chevytrucks.com.

While surfing the 73-87 message board, I ran across a post that was titled something like “Hey, look what’s on Ebay”. You know the ones I’m talking about. You are always tempted to look, but it’s almost never anything worth checking out.

This one was different. The link inside lead me to this really clean black 77 Chevy Cheyenne. It had a few pics displayed in the ad, so I spent some time viewing them. Since pictures on the net can be very deceiving, I just assumed this truck was a really nice 10 footer. As I opened the pictures up, I was surprised at how clean this truck really was. I must have spent an hour clicking each picture to “super size” it for a better view.

I could not get over how clean this truck was. The ad said it was a low mileage truck to start with, and had undergone a professional body-off restoration. I had to know more about it. That night I emailed the owner asking for more information, and of course more pictures.

He responded with a brief story about how it had been restored at a shop in Arkansas that specializes in classic restorations. It spent a few years being trailered to car shows, and winning awards before it was sold. It went through another owner before this gentleman bought it with the intentions of selling it for a profit. He sent more pictures along with the history.

The new pictures were even more impressive. I was able to see from these shots that it was just as nice as it appeared. I decided even though I had a driveway full of trucks, and neck deep in my Blazer project, I had to pursue this further. With the reluctant permission of my wife, I placed a bid. I eventually won the bid, but did not meet the reserve. I figured it was just not meant to be, and I let it go.

A couple of weeks later, I went to visit Keith, a good friend of mine. We live a few hours apart, so we try to find good excuses to get together often. There was a truck show in his area, so my family went to stay with his family, and the guys went to the show.

On our way to the show, Keith asked whatever happened to the 77 I was bidding on, so I told him the story. He said since the truck wasn’t too far from where we were, that we should go look at it. Being the good friend that I am, I didn’t want to offend him by disagreeing too much. Actually I was dying to go look at it.

I did mention how I didn’t think my wife would appreciate me buying another truck considering how many trucks I already owned. He smiled, and said that he knew she wouldn’t mind “too much”, because he had already asked her.

We called the guy that owned the truck and arranged a meeting. When we rolled up to his house it was sitting in the driveway with the sun filtering through large oak trees on it. The sunlight seemed to accent it in just the right places. WOW! It looked so sweet with the sun bouncing off the chrome trim, and glossy black paint. I was excited, but tried not to show it. My Dad taught me a long time ago, to never let a seller see your excitement.

(click to go to the full gallery of pics)

Keith and I spent an hour or more looking the truck over from top to bottom. The undercarriage was as clean as the top side. I could tell that this had started as a solid truck before it was restored. It had the feel of a new truck. I liked the fact that it wasn’t over-restored, and could see that the quality of the work was good.