1966 Chevy Stepside - Endless Summer

Winter Is The Time For Change

By John Gilbert

The stereotypical image mainstream media usually likes to portray of small towns is that they tend to be a little bit behind the times. For example, the 2006 star attraction at the 47th Annual Artichoke Festival held in Castroville, California, was William Hung. If you don't remember, he's the guy who sang the freakishly flat rendition of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" on American Idol.

On the surface, you could easily surmise from this that California's Central Coast is about as un-hip as a place can be. But digging deeper, for people who love good music and custom classic trucks, California's Central Coast is the heartland for hip traditions. While William Hung's scheduled appearance lasted only 15 minutes, the other acts played 1 1/2-hour sets. Amongst these groups was Malo, a band that has been around for over 34 years with a faithful following that spans generations. Castroville Midnighters Car Club member James Flores, owner of the pretty little '66 Chevy gracing these pages, was seeking a traditional platform. His wife, Georgina, and son Jesse spotted the '66 for sale and brought it by his workplace to let him check it out. "It made my day. I've been working on it a little at a time for over eight years." James told us he tears his truck down during the winter to make changes, then drives it all summer long into the fall. "One of these days it will get into shiny paint." Last March, when we spotted James' '66 shortbed Stepside at the 26th Annual Chevy/GMC Truckin' Nationals in Santa Maria, California, we felt the tinted primer truck was at a stage our valued readers would enjoy seeing in the pages of Custom Classic Trucks.

The construction of James' '66 was aided by his family and friends. When he installed the air-ride suspension on the truck, his wife Georgina helped him bolt up the Air Ride Technologies kit. The two of them spent about a week and a half in their garage laying the '66 out step by step. For a reserve air supply the '66 relies on two 5-gallon tanks. For fresh air, two compressors fill the tanks back up. James wired his switch-box so he can hit corners, side or pancake it all at once.

The original base 230-inch inline-six that came with James' '66 was long gone when he bought it. The owner before him had dropped in a 350-inch small-block. The 350 was starting to get tired, so James looked to Salinas local George Camney to build one of his famous 383-inch strokers to wake the 40-year-old truck up. While George built the engine, James looked to his brother-in-law Jerry at the SoCal Transmission Clinic in Santa Cruz, California, to build a beefed 700R4 tranny to handle the increased power.

Instead of mentioning how many years it took him to build the Stepside, James listed his truck as "under construction" on the tech sheet. The Chevy is still equipped with its original differential housing stock gears. Until he gets a beefier rearend in the truck, James doesn't nail it off the line or punch it that often. Between the 700R4's automatic overdrive and James nursing the 383, the '66 makes it pretty far before he has to refill the 19-gallon fuel cell located at the rear of the bed.

James focused his customizing attention on the '66's outward appearance. His friend Robert Vasquez is responsible for shaving the door handles and drip-rails, along with frenching the Caddy taillights into the bedsides. Looking at the front starting with the hood downward toward the grille, one can see Robert dumped the stock turn signals in favor of custom flamed units with a phantom grille concealing quad rectangular headlights. Moving to the opposite end reveals the tailgate has been welded shut and molded in.

With another summer fast approaching, James didn't want to be caught unable to roll his truck to his favorite shows. Robert poured green tint into white lacquer primer as Georgina scoped the color; when the hue was right, Georgina commanded a halt. Once the custom artichoke green base color primer was sprayed on, Freddy Alsaro of Los Banos, California, laid out the flames and airbrushed on the artwork. After Freddy finished his contribution, the pinstripes were pulled at Alan's Signs in Salinas.

James' original interior man didn't work out, but he had ordered light gray and charcoal leather hides. James knew a guy named Alex in nearby Watsonville who had a reputation for turning out kick-ass interiors for street rods. After meeting with Alex, James loaded up his stack of hides and dropped his '66 off on a Monday morning. James hadn't even started to miss his truck before Alex called on Thursday and told him his truck was done.

Thanks to guys like Alex, Jerry, Robert, Roy, George and, of course, James' two sons Roc and Jesse, along with their mom, Georgina, James was able to roll his '66 Chevy out again in time for the '06 season. James expects to have his truck completely redone in custom gloss paint by the '07 show season. Of course, as we all know that means it's time to start over again.