LOCO MOTIVE

WITH KILLER LOWRIDER-INSPIRED PAINT, LUSCIOUS TRIM, 420HP UNDERFOOT AND A WORM-BURNING STANCE, THIS C10 SURE MAKES A SWEET STREETER

- IAIN KELLY

CLASSIC pick-up trucks are possibly the hottest trend in street machining at the moment. They look killer no matter the modification style, whether lifted with beefy 4x4 underpinnings, raked heavily with a nasty pro street vibe, or slammed to the ground on air suspension like Chris Hicks’s ’65 C10 here.

Freshly finished by Kyle Smith and the team at Smith Concepts in Brookvale, this short-bed Chevy blends street machine, lowrider and custom car touches. It’s an epic beach cruiser that’s nice enough to take trophies at shows. And yet it started from much humbler beginnings.

“It was a pretty shabby satin-black truck imported into Queensland,” says Kyle. “A gentleman had it as a daily and partshauler for a few years, and we found it online. We picked it up as a semi-running/driving six-pot and three-on-the-tree rig, got it transported down here and stripped it straight down.”

While the original recipe called for tidying up the paint and throwing a better drivetrain in, things soon rolled out of control and the chassis was chopped up in preparation for a far more righteous stance. While classic pick-ups can haul stacks of lumber, getting them to sit at a cool ride height requires plenty of cutting and welding of the frame.

“It was going to be a three-to-four-month build, but then it turned into a full ground-up build with a lot more work involved,” explains Kyle, who immediately hit the internet and purchased a full front end from GSI Machine & Fabrication in the USA.