When Mike O’Connor’s wife, Brenda, told him she wanted a 1950s, fat fendered pick up with a shop truck theme, he did what any sensible gearhead would do. He found her something different.
     He found a nice, rust free ’67 Chevy that already had a body off restoration but was painted flat black with black steel wheels.  “The idea was to sand it to a matte finish and logo the door with something,” says O’Connor. But Brenda wasn’t buying it. “This truck is not for me,” she said. “If you want it, buy it but I want a fat fender truck.” Brenda would soon change her mind and Mike would soon kind of lose his during the build. “As with most hot rod projects we have built, it got out of hand,” says O’Connor.
     What was supposed to be just a reliable, cool daily driver soon became a wicked looking truck that could haul home trophies as easily as it hauled home the groceries. As mentioned before, O’Connor started with a rust free truck that already had a body-off restoration. Turns out that just meant he could spend his time and money tweaking things more to his liking instead of dealing with years of environmental and road damage.
     The engine, a tired 327, was replaced with a 350/350HP crate motor with a Corvette camshaft, Edelbrock 650 carb, Mallory distributor and headers while the tranny was replaced with a 700R4 with an outboard cooler and a TCI lock up kit.
    The suspension received some tweaks, including boxed rear trailing arms but it already had a late model Chevy front cross member and Bell Tech drop spindles. An Easystreet 9-way air ride system means the truck can drop frame at the drop of a hat then get back up to drive home from the car show without kissing speed bumps. The truck came with black steel rims, but those were soon replaced with 20-inch Foose Rims wrapped in Toyo  tires.
     The flat black finish wouldn’t work for this truck, so a 1957 Ford red coats most of the exterior, save for the charcoal colour Goodmark 2-inch cowl hood. The front bumper was also smoothed and the phantom front grille painted to match the hood. Twisted Metal in Newmarket, ON gets credit for the paint. The previous owner had already performed numerous body mods, including filled stake pockets, smoothed tailgate, flipped tailgate handle, custom rear roll pan and 1994 Cadillac taillights.
     The interior was done by Peferlaw in custom distressed and stitched leather  — complete with branding marks still on the leather — on the seats, door panels and custom embossed headliner. All the gauges were rebuilt and inserted into a custom aluminum gauge cluster painted to match the hood. Multiple exotic woods were used  to create a unique dash trim cap. A tilt colum and late model Lumina steering wheel finish off the custom touches. A Hideaway Alpine audio system was installed by Auto Design in Markham, ON.
     The truck was completed this spring with many credits to friends Mike Breau and Hamilton Heuvel. When it was done, O’Connor asked Brenda to drive it to a cruise night while he drove his ’55 wagon. She loved it.
     “I can’t get her out of it,” he says. Now he calls the truck “her dream, my nightmare.”
     It’s definitely a sweet dream on wheels.