Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2023 i F-Series Builder's Guide

LYNWOOD, CALIFORNIA, IS knee-deep in Southern California hot rod, custom, and lowrider history. The Barris brothers, Louis Chavez, Bill Hines, and Bill Gaylord all had shops in Lynwood at some point during their history, with plenty of the city’s residents also partaking in the thriving automotive culture around them. Although the area’s heyday may be gone, there are still those who carry the torch for beautiful rides in the SoCal south bay. Let’s take Luis “Nacho” Rodriguez, for example. Yup, he’s from Lynwood, and he has a thing for custom rides. In fact, building them is what he does for a living. And if you know anyone who builds other people’s rides for a living, you know that that line of work leaves very little time to work on your…

WE WOULDN’T BLAME YOU if, at first glance, you wondered if this 1975 F-600 was simply a leftover relic of some bygone era—an old, funky truck that lived its prime in the ’70s. Perhaps it sat behind a long-closed machine shop or in an overgrown field, forgotten by its owner decades ago. Or perhaps it’s a survivor, having faithfully served its small handful of owners for the past 48-plus years, making its weekly run to the feed store or the local burger drive-in. The truth is, we don’t know how this truck spent its life before it got into the hands of Jack Elberson of Jack’d Up Trucks, but what we do know is that the life it has lived since then has been nothing short of transformative. REALLY TRANSFORMED…

SO MANY OF US AS ENTHUSIASTS have a parent or family member who had cool vehicles in their past, whether a vintage car when they were younger, a hot rod from their college days, or a cool truck that they remember washing in the driveway or riding in as a family before it was traded in or sold off for something more “practical.” Luckily for some of you, families occasionally keep vehicles around; sometimes on purpose, sometimes by coincidence. The Stoger family is one of those families. The 1953 Ford F-100 you see before you lived most of its life as a farm truck for Shaun’s parents and family. This work truck that has spent countless years in daily use for errands and chores for the Stogers was fortunate to…

THIS TRUCK HAS SOME STORIES TO tell. Owned by Justin Zerwekh of Roseburg, Oregon, the 1955 Ford F-100 has accompanied him on all his adventures, from high school homecoming to his honeymoon, across multiple states and beyond. And it’s all thanks to Justin’s father, Jim. More than 20 years ago, when Justin turned 151/2, Jim sat his son down for a talk. “He told me that when I was driving age, he wouldn’t buy me a truck, but he would help me build one,” Justin says. “He said it’ll take money and time, but he said I could build it. I could do it with his help.” And so they hunted for the perfect project truck. One afternoon, the Zerwekhs’ next-door neighbor’s widow told them that her husband wanted Justin…

Direct-Fit All-Electric Cluster for ’73-’79 Ford Trucks This 1973-’79 Ford truck direct-fit package from Classic Instruments is an all-electric cluster that features a speedometer and fuel, oil, temperature, and volt gauges in either black or white. It has green turn signal indicators, a blue high-beam indicator, and two red warning lights. The company’s hybrid LED lighting offers the feel of the original perimeter lighting and the visual benefits of back-lighting—even illumination and clear nighttime readability. Classic Instruments 844-342-8437 www.classicinstruments.com Premium Replacement Bed Floor for ’73-’79 F-Series Shortbed Style Side From Auto Metal Direct comes this reproduction bed floor assembly for the ’73-’79 Ford F-100, F-150, and F-250 Style Side/Fleet Side Shortbed models. It’s correct for the standard-width-frame trucks. Trucks with the narrower Highboy frame will require modification to bolt…

IF YOU HAVE BEEN around the automotive community, you’ve heard about the SEMA Show. I The first ever SEMA Show was held back in 1967 in the basement of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. At that premier event that was open to the public, 98 manufacturers showcased their wares in booths for the nearly 3,000 attendees. Five cars were on display—one of which was a 1967 Ford GT40 in the Shelby America booth. The early Los Angeles shows were primarily card-table and masking-tape affairs, but by the 1970s, fancy displays and marketing were more visible throughout the show. At that time, a booth cost around $375. … you can see the trends and waves of the automotive culture if you pay attention to [SEMA] and what comes out of it.…

THERE’S JUST SOMETHING about a classic Ford truck that makes you feel good. Maybe it’s the aesthetic, born in a time when aerodynamics weren’t as important as style. Maybe it’s the feel—the varied texture of faded paint and worn textiles over the firm springs of an old bench seat. Or maybe it just all comes down to the truck’s original intention: good, hard, honest work. It’s a sentiment that is often easily lost these days, in a world where what you appear to do seems to matter more than what you actually do. Whatever the reason, there always seems to be a smile that goes along with it. When Bennett Lisenby first started noticing old Ford trucks at a young age, they seemed to grab an unexplainable hold on him.…

WHEN YOU HEAR THE TERMS “streamlined” or “clean” thrown around at a car show, this Ford Bumpside pickup physically exemplifies what those two words mean. Brad McGill, an Australian hot-rod builder and aficionado of highly modified, toned-down custom vehicles of all varieties, has developed his own style over the years with the cars and trucks he has built from the ground up. Rowl Customs is the name of his shop, and his game plan for is relatively simple—usually. Creating radical rides is Brad’s day-to-day business, and he never has any problem selling them once they have been completed. It’s a simple business model, really, and that’s exactly how he has kept his shop bankrolled and moving forward all these years. Well, an irregularity was bound to pop up in that…

LOSING A BELOVED VEHICLE in a wreck is never an easy thing to process. As long as there are no major injuries to worry about, the next step is to determine if anything is left to salvage from the wrecked vehicle. Most of us have been in this situation before, but only a slim percentage have been able to bounce back from it like Craig Grisolia of Stillman Valley, Illinois. Craig had to deal with this exact scenario a few years back after his ’97 Ford F-250 was totaled in a crash. While there wasn’t much he wished to save in the way of body panels, wheels, tires, or anything like that, there was one piece that he was dead set on extracting to hopefully reuse sometime in the future.…

IN THE EVER-CHANGING and constantly evolving world that automotive has become, new shops with new and unique ideas are always popping up. Sometimes, those “new ideas” are not based on something that just came out or that they recently created. Sometimes they are based on evolved creations from history. PRD Design happens to be inspired greatly by this philosophy. While the shop is not purely based around this idea, the owner and operator of PRD, Brycen Smith, is inspired by and has had a longtime dream to create a custom car that is based upon a famous World War II piece of aircraft. Not only did he want it to look era-appropriate, but he also wanted it to be properly hand-built like the airplane originally was, from the chassis to…

IF YOU FEEL LIKE THIS BRONCO looks familiar, you’re probably right. Originally built for Jeff Trapp (owner of Jeff’s Bronco Graveyard) as a promotional display vehicle, the build was well documented on History Channel’s “Detroit Steel TV” show a few years ago when it was customized by Mobsteel. Since then, the old Bronco has been plastered all over the internet, becoming one of the most recognized second-gens out there. It obviously didn’t start out that way. In fact, the ’79 was in pretty rough shape when Adam Genei of Mobsteel first dragged it into the Detroit-based shop. When your client is in the business of selling every Bronco restoration part imaginable, however, you’re already a few long strides ahead in the game. With the entire Jeff’s Bronco Graveyard catalog at…

STAGE 4 OF THE STREET TRUCKS’ Showoff Series was kick-butt thanks to the hard-working members on our team here at Engaged Media and the crew at Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, Florida. What better place to hold a truck show than at such a legendary automotive staple! With a Best of Show $2,500 grand prize and more than 40 hand-painted custom trophies by Jason from Feltham Fab, the show had quite the turnout. Some great trucks and even better people came out to support the event and compete for their shot at grabbing the Best of Show purse and the cover of Street Trucks magazine. The winning truck ended up Mike Barcia’s insanely detailed “No Compromise” 1996 Chevy 3500 dually build. Second place went to Mike Hill…