PRACTICAL PICKUP – GARRY WAL JONES 1948 CHEVY PICKUP
If you haven’t noticed lately, pickups are hot property right now. But 13 years ago when he was harassing his mate into selling him this late 40s classic, Garry Wal Jones was just ahead of the game.
The old work horse in question was a 2 1/2 tonne, dual wheeled farm truck put out to pasture in rural Lismore. Equipped with a huge timber tray, it was unearthed from its slumber by the proprietor of S. J. Motor Trimmers, Sid Janeson as business potential. Sid and Gary have been good mates since they were 13 year old lads, and Gary’s persistent requests finally paid off.
“He was going to use it as a shop truck, but I hassled him about buying it for quite some time. He would just laugh at me, until one day he called me up and offered to sell it to me.”
Beneficial for Gary, Sid had already sprung for a new fabricated tray that came with the deal. Once he had worked out what he wanted to do with his new project, he gathered a few key ingredients and farmed out the chassis upgrades to Gary and Laurie Coats. Along with boxing the frame, the Coats grafted in a HK Holden front end equipped with HQ discs and dropped spindles, and set up a coil over, four bar rear end. All of the original body mounts for the cab were retained, dictating where the new bed sat, and the wheels were moved accordingly. Stock front and mid cross members were also utilised. With a foot and half of the rear rails removed to meet the shorter tray, a WB Holden 10 bolt diff was positioned in its new location.
Gary turfed the original Blue Flame six in favor of a tried and true 350 Chevy that features a mild cam and headwork, Weiand intake and 650 Holley. Once he had mapped the exhaust system he enlisted specialised skills of Dave at Chinderah Exhausts (Discount Mufflers) to recreate it in 2” stainless steel. “It’s no speed machine, but with 330hp at the back wheels she does what she supposed to when you put your foot down,” he quips.
Like any good rodder, Gary was knee deep in other projects when Sid gave him the good news about the availability of the Chevy, so it was put on the back burner for a while. During that time, he found inspiration for its finished form in a flat black ‘37 Ford sedan that frequented his annual pilgrimage to Wintersun, at Coolangatta.
“I remember pointing it out with its purple wheels to my wife Lisa; she thought I was just strange. Satin black with purple accents, that’s the go!”
With that mental picture in mind, Gary set about resurrecting the aged sheet metal that had certainly seen better days. The rear guards came with the tray and are the only fiberglass items on the truck.
“The bottoms of the guards were rotten and the inner and outer lower cowl sections on both sides were pretty sad. We got some patch panels out of the States and welded them in. Flutes now replace the air vent flaps on the cowl but other than that it was pretty straight,” he recalls.
Reproduction steel running boards were sourced from Classic Trucks in the USA who also came up with a new grill, bumper and most of the badging. Gary stresses that every nut and bolt was replaced during the rebuild with the majority of them now stainless steel. With the sheet metal assembly almost complete, thoughts turned toward paint colour once again.
“It was always going to be satin black with the purple accents,” he reiterates, “but I don’t think that my wife and kids were all that happy about that. Then just before I lost my dad to cancer he said to me; ‘if you paint that thing bloody flat black, I’ll come back and haunt you!’ That really stirred me up. It made me stop and think.”
Ironically, Gary’s neighbor John Potter, just so happened to be a semi-retired beater/painter, and was more than happy to offer his skills on one condition.
“He said that he’ll paint it… as long as it wasn’t black,” Gary laughs, “after that I sat down with a couple of paint charts and picked out a 1976 Corolla cream colour.”
Needless to say, he never gave up on his purple accents, and in turn got more than he bargained for!
As the old hay hauler morphed from an ugly duckling into snow white swan, a befitting trim was needed to complete the transformation. Turning to his old mate Sid, Gary poised the question of what do we do?
“Sid has a very creative mind. He said to me; ‘what do you want to do with the trim?’
I replied that I didn’t really know but the wheels are purple… maybe match that. He showed me the Crocodile skin and ask what I thought of it, pretty cool I replied. He said OK and that was about the size of it. He went away and put it together, I guess I let him run with it.”
When Sid returned with the completed interior, Gary was a little taken back.
“He showed up one day with the finished trim and when he unveiled it… I went ‘Oh My God!’ Thankfully I don’t mind the colour purple. Once I had it all in I really liked it and it works well. We had an enjoyable time fitting it with a couple of drinks thrown in.”
Amazingly for its age, only the front glass was replaced with all the remaining original glass reused with new rubbers and modified FJ quarter glass rubbers. Gary informs me that all door handles are FJ, as per original on Aussie trucks and pickups. He also relents that the chrome plater lost his original ones and sent a pair to suit a Plymouth instead. Thankfully it wasn’t too hard to locate replacements.
Completed in 2011, Gary’s parts chaser has developed a couple of downfalls as daughter Katie is the first one to call shotgun, leaving not enough room for the rest of the family.
“I am constantly reminded to get something that fits us all, or hurry up and finish Katie’s 1927 Chevy roadster pickup,” he jovially remarks, “but it’s the best way to get her off any electrical device!”
