As you skim through the pages of this new issue you'll notice that Project Get Shorty is nowhere to be found. Fear not, it's still in the works, however, taking a hiatus this month. Although the '71 Chevy doesn't make a cameo in the issue, that doesn't mean work has ceased. Here's a rundown of where the project stands.
As you have probably noticed by the picture, this once longbed work truck is now officially a shortbed. Sure, the frame has been cut, the wheelbase altered, and other odds and ends have been worked out for some time now, but through all of that there was never actually a bed back there. You may remember that a few months back a new LMC shortbed was assembled, but it was never placed on the truck. Now, for the first time in its 37 year existence, the truck sports a shortbed-finally. Over the past week I have been busy building bed mounts, for both the front and back of the bed, in order to get to the point you see here. Also, although I originally never intended to do so, I have been busy raising the bed floor up 3 inches, in order to achieve the rear stance seen in the photo. Besides the fact that performing all this unexpected work is time consuming-and not exactly necessary-it's a crucial step in order to get the stance and look I'm after! After all, it's just more work. And since I've already come this far, there's no reason to cut things short and sacrifice a key aspect of the truck to laziness.
Moving forward, you may notice the front end of the truck doesn't exactly look like that of a '71 anymore. Once again, in order to achieve the look I'm after a complete custom front end needed to be built from scratch. Using sheetmetal, 1/2-inch electrical conduit, and various sized steel rod I concocted the grille surround. Inside the new opening is five streamline tubing floating grille bars. However, they're off at the chrome shop as I type, which means they're MIA for the photo. In order to get the bars to sink inside the new grille surround, I also had to sink the headlights back into the core support roughly 4 inches.
Idle hands are the devil's playground, and unfortunately, or I like to think of it as fortunately, my idle hands seem to find their way towards the Chevy, for better or worse. Well, that's where I stand, moving along slowly but surely. I hope all of you can say the same.-Dakota Wentz