Frankenstein

I call my truck “Shelley,” after Mary Shelley, the author of “Frankenstein.” She started life as a 1973 Hawaiian Blue fleetside 2wd Custom Deluxe 10. My dad gave me the truck in the early 90s, to replace the overloaded Buick I was using to deliver newspapers.

Over the years I made many “upgrades” to the truck. I rebuilt the engine when a push rod broke and caused the piston to score one of the cylinders. My dad found a long stepside bed with a rotten wooden floor at a farmer’s auction. Many trips to the junkyard yielded a replacement driver’s side door from a 1977 model, a hood off of a Blazer, rolled steel grill, folding bench, and many other small parts. She truly earned her “Frankenstein” moniker when I restored a 1977 K10 4wd chassis, and moved the cab, bed and engine to it, while welding in new cab floor panels and the transmission hump cut out of a K10 cab from the junkyard.

When good salvage parts became difficult to find, I discovered LMC Truck. Upholstery for the bench, rear fenders, front inner fenders, a bumper and countless other parts have all been installed from LMC. Over the past two years I decided it was time to make her look like she deserved the collector plates she wears, so I redid the wood bed and put on a single stage urethane paint job. She’s not a show truck by any means, but with a lot of parts from LMC, and a lot of elbow grease, I think my Frankenstein’s Monster is a bit more presentable.