Dean Rybicki's '54 Chevy

Desire and ability don’t always match financial resources. Sometimes one has to backtrack to make a dream come true. Dean and Cherri Rybicki were a young California couple with two kids to raise, and their budget didn’t leave room for every toy they wanted. But when Dean dreamed of one day owning a vintage truck, he imagined a bright-yellow pickup with a blown motor poking through the hood.

Dean first purchased a ’52 Chevy truck that was fairly stock with an updated drivetrain. Unfortunately, it was a nightmare—a bottomless money pit that became a constant source of frustration and disappointment. Dean decided to cut his losses, sell the ’52, and scan the Truck Trader ads for the truck of his dreams. Three years later he spotted this ’54 less than 10 miles from his home in Seal Beach, California. There were enough little modifications to indicate that the previous owner had invested some time and money, and it was bright yellow, his dream color.

Dean noticed some of the differences from the ’52 Chevy. The ’54 Chevy 3100 pickups came with a one-piece windshield. More noticeable was the different grille design, a more massive crossbar treatment with body color on the outside bars, and (originally) Thistle Gray or Argent Silver on the inner bars. This truck has been relieved of its rear bumper and most of its bright trim; even the door handles are painted late-model GM items. But it’s under the hood where the biggest changes have occurred. Since its purchase, Dean’s truck has been further modified by Wheeler’s Speed Shop and Nick Haas to provide more spirited performance and (oh, yeah?) reliability. The Huntington Beach crew added a BDS 6-71 blower and nitrous oxide to the approximately 700hp 350 Chevy hooked to a TH400 trans with a B&M 3,000-rpm converter and shift kit.

We spotted Dean’s truck in the paint shop where it was getting touched up after Wheeler’s Speed Shop cut the hole in the hood to clear the airscoop. Soon after the paint dried we snapped these photos at the Seal Beach pier. Now Dean has to pinch himself as he motors through the beach towns along Pacific Coast Highway in his dream-come-true ’54 Chevy.