How it Started

It all started when I wanted to find something that my 10 year old son and I could work on together and call our own. A Father and Son need something to do together, something they can share, and something they can be proud of. After much delberation I decided that a vehicle of some sort would be best even though he might be a little young. I thought that if we could do something for us now, then perhaps we could do something for him next. Too many time a young man is given a car to drive only to end up wrecking it soon after. If he puts his own sweat and tears into a restoration it seems that it will mean more to him and thus he will be much more careful. This may be the more expensive route to take but thing it will pay off in the long run as he learns to care for his own vehicles, respect those that do the same, drives more carefully himself, and most importantly will hopefully avoid the typical accident that most young drivers experience.

The question then became what type of vehicle should it be? Everyone needs a truck occasionaly and being that we have not had one for several years after the Ford caught fire and burned up that seemed like the right idea. Unfortunately when it come to trucks, they just are not very exciting for a boy. We looked at everything made during the 60's and 70's and nothing did it for him and he could not imagine restoration of the 40's and 50's trucks that we were able to find that were avaliable. It was very difficult to look for something when we had no idea what it was. Finally one evening it hit me like a ton of bricks, when I was a boy of 10 I drew lots of Hot Rod cars and Trucks and everyone of them had that open mouth full of teeth on the front end. Problem was, I didn't know what make or years that was. Off to the internet I went and it didn't take long to find that what I was looking for was a Chevrolet or GMC from 1955 to 1959. Now we had something we could look for.

With this came a new problem, everything we found avaliable was either about to fall apart or had been so hacked up that it no longer was an old truck and was overpriced for even what had been done to it. Then I stumbled across a website called Stovebolt, a nickname for trucks using the Chevy Straight 6 engine, and made a new discovery. I found photo of a 1955 2nd Series NAPCO 4x4 Suburban Carryall that had been completely restored so perfectly that the owner was afraid to drive it for fear that the 4x4 parts would get worn out and he would be unable to replace them. That was it, we were hooked. A Suburban it had to be so the hunt was on and finally we found what we were looking for. Some mild restoration had been done, it had a Ford 9" rear end under it and a couple of coats of modern grey paint on it with some upolstery work done but all-in-all it was fairly origional.

A New Blog !!

The story of a father and son project from beginning to final completion. While the project started some time ago the Blog is just beginning. Much effort has been made to compile photos and stories of the project but nothing has been done to put it all together.

This Blog is meant to bring everything together into one common place where we can review it and share our story with others. We hope you will stick around to see our hard work come together into what we envision as a grand creation. Sign up as a follower and we will send you an email each time we add something new to the blog. If you see something along the way that you can offer tips or advice on then please do so by adding comments.

We look forward sharing our experience with all of you and hearing your tips, comments, and suggestions.