For wheels and tires, the '65 rolls on 15x10-inch chromed Corvette Rally Sport wheels shod with 50-series BFGoodrich T/A s. At the time we shot Al's truck, he was running the '65's original four-speed truck tranny complete with compound low. Since then, Al has installed a beefed Turbo 400 with a Lokar shifter. Under the hood lies the heart and soul of rock 'n' roll, a super nasty 383 stroker from Kirk Westberg and his partner, Andrew, at Advanced Engine. Starting from the top, induction is handled with a pair of Edelbrock 500-cfm four-barrel carbs sitting caddywhompass on an Edelbrock cross-ram intake manifold. From here, the mixture is swirled through a set of Airflow Research cylinder heads with valves taking orders from a COMP Xtreme hydraulic roller cam fixed to a Cloyes geardrive setup. On the spent end of the combustion cycle, Flowtech headers dump into a pair of Flowmaster mufflers. For oiling, the stroker Chevy relies on a heavy-duty oil pump drawing 20-50 from a polished aluminum oil pan.
Inside the cab, Al's bright green '65 features the upholstery skills of Lee Henning of Deer Park, Washington. Lee re-covered the stock Chevy bench seat in rich black velour with black deep-pile carpeting to match. For the 65's sound system, Al custom-rewired the entire truck and stuffed in an Eclipse head unit and amplifier feeding an assortment of MTX and Panasonic speakers into the cab.
For as many months as Washington state weather permits, usually early May to sometime in October, Al likes to drive his '65 as much as possible. When the climate turns bad, Al rolls his truck into his really nice home shop (we know this firsthand since we visited Al last August) and tears back into the '65. For the 2007 show season, Al tells us he'll be rolling out with a smoothed firewall and a bunch of super-trick Jim Meyer goodies. Since the Spokane Goodguys show is on Custom Classic Trucks' list of must-attend shows, we'll be there in full force to check it out.