Maybe wild isn't quite the right word to describe Gary Kinion's '69 Chevy CST C10 Fleetside shortbed, but the effort he went to, to build the ultimate resto-rod pickup sure was. The saga of Gary's '69 Chevy C10 started roughly 13 years prior to the actual date of when Gary and his son blew the Omaha Orange and White shortbed down to the bare frame. Gary found the truck one early Sunday morning while at the Long Beach Veterans swap meet where a friend had the truck up for sale. He really liked how unmolested and highly optioned the Chevy was right down to its factory-original orange-and-white two-tone paintjob. For his weekend cruiser Gary already owned a '72 2WD Blazer that was dressed to the nines, so for his daily-driver he chose to run the '69 pretty much as is. Then one day almost before they realized what had happened, one thing led to another and the Kinion boys found themselves staring at a bare chassis sitting up on four jack stands. Going from the bare frame up was a first for Gary, but dealing with the right places to get trick parts for a C10 Chevy wasn't. In the next town over from where Gary lives in Garden Grove, California, lays the city of Anaheim and the Chevrolet high-performance suspension experts at Classic Performance Products. The first thing to do to the '69 was set a lowered stance and upgrade the steering and stock drum brakes. Up front, Gary installed a set of CPP 1- inch drop coils in between upper and lower tubular controls arms from CPP. To drop the front end an additional 2.5 inches a pair of CPP modular spindles were put into place. For damping, a pair of KYB gas shock absorbers were mounted using Classic Performance Products' shock mounting kit that offers twice the support of a stock factory shock mount and eliminates the tendency for the top mount to tear out of the frame. Spanning between the CPP tubular arms is a CPP heavy-duty sway bar tucked up closer to the crossmember to prevent scraping the sway bar by using CPP's special kit to address this problem. For brakes, Gary installed CPP 12-inch disc brakes at all four corners assisted with a CPP dual master-cylinder and power brake booster. To maintain an early classic look Gary used CPP 6-lug rotors front and rear to tuck behind 17-inch Intro Twisted Vista 6's shod with Nitto Extreme Performance tires. At front the wheels are 17x8-inch with 4 3/4 inches of backspacing and the rears are 17x10-inch with 4 1/2 inches of backspacing. To go with the front tires are 255/50/17 and the rears are 275/50/17. To take advantage of the extra g's Gary's C10 can pull, there's a CPP "quick-ratio" steering box attached to the end of an N.O.S. tilt-steering column topped with an N.O.S. rosewood steering wheel. The dashboard features a complete CST gauge cluster including factory tach and speed warning. For tunes Gary installed an N.O.S. ACDelco AM/FM radio with 4x6-inch titanium bone speakers. Climate control and safety is thanks to factory A/C and a pair of, which Gary told us is rare, stock seat-belts with an optional shoulder harness. The original factory bucket seats and console was done in black by Francisco Auto Upholstery of Long Beach, California. Feeding 12-volt current from bumper-to-bumper is an N.O.S.-style wiring harness from M&H Electric Fabricators of Santa Fe Springs, California. Underneath the console resides a beefed Tubro 400 automatic transmission built by Mark Bell at Wilson & Bell Automotive in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Under the hood there's a '69 396-inch 0.30-over Rat motor built by Ross Wilson of Ross Wilson Racing Engines also out of Rancho Cucamonga.
The fully-balanced engine features an Edelbrock Performer aluminum intake manifold topped with a Q-Jet carburetor, and uses stock exhaust manifolds to dump out of a pair of Flowmaster mufflers routed through 3x5-inch holes standard in all CPP LDL crossmembers. A four-row Harrison radiator fixes the cooling problems normally associated with a 396. To hook it all up, a one-piece driveshaft from Unitrax mates to a 3.73:1 12-bolt rearend hung at the correct pinion angle also thanks to the CPP LDL crossmember. A third benefit of the CPP LDL crossmember is ground clearance. For rear suspension and a slammed stance there's a pair of CPP 4-inch drop springs, with 1-inch lowering blocks damped with a pair of KYB gas shocks.
Looking at the '69's exterior shows off front and rear bumpers custom chrome-plated by Orange County Plating of Orange, California. If that's not enough orange for you, the Hugger Orange and White paint and bodywork was done by Nacho at Coachwerks in Long Beach, California. Gary said with the help of his son Cody and friends, Brent, Phil, and Ross the '69 took about 4 1/2 years to build. Additionally Gary wanted special thanks to go out to Seth Doulton from the original Golden State Pickup Parts and Jim Ries at Classic Performance Products.