GMCNUT
December 16th, 2014, 05:29 AM
After a long long time waiting, I have another super cool GMC in my barn this week. So here's the story and a few preliminary pictures to get started with - see what you think (the one shot is of the Quillen family posing with the truck for their 2012 Christmas card). Several years ago my buddy and fellow antique truck enthusiast Josh Quillen of Florence AL located a rare, Custom Cab 1960 GMC 1000 series short wide pickup still with its 2nd owner. For the first several years the guy wouldn't sell stating he had intent to restore it (never heard that before) but finally about 3 years back Josh was incidentally riding by that guys' house and there it was - rolled out to the road w/ for sale sign on it. So Josh nearly had a stroke when he saw it was for sale, and the guy came out and met him and instantly remembered him stopping all those times, and apologized for losing Joshs' number but said he would take 4500 bucks for it. Josh is like me and never pays over about 2500 for unrestored trucks, so this was too high, but after some haggling, was able to get him down to 3500 so he bought it. I knew how long he had been trying to get it, and secretly wanted it for myself, so I was shocked he was able to get it after all that time. So the guy proceeded to tell Josh that the truck was bought brand new in Florence and was driven up to about 30,000 miles over a 10 yr period when the original owner traded it back at the GMC dealership for a new 1970 Sierra Grande. He bought it and drove it all over the Southeast and as far West as Texas and as far North as Chicago. He eventually rebuilt the 305A which still runs strong today with no smoke. This truck was / is solid Onyx Black and has chrome bumpers, bumper guards, big rear window, factory power steering & power brakes, uber-rare factory 3 speed Overdrive trans, all the stainless short bed side mouldings in near mint condition, and seems like a couple other odd-ball options I can't remember. Josh is a 69-72 nut in reality, so I had smartly expressed my deep interest in having first shot at it if it were ever to be sold from day 1 of him getting it, and he did completely dis-assemble it in the last 2 years and nearly made it to the paint shop before finally getting distracted too much with his 69-72's and finally he gave up. Josh did not want to sell me (or anyone) this truck, but I stayed on him for this last 3 years while he's had it, and he finally let me have it last Friday. He removed the side trim and sent it to a guy to polish it out, and he cosmetically restored the engine bay, but never took many pics, so currently these are all I have. Josh won a NOS hood jet off Ebay you wont believe - and he gave it to me with the truck! I will add pics of that uber-rare gem next. He also had the emblems re-chromed and bought a pull-off tailgate to replace the bent up and rusty original. This truck is about 99% rust free - the tailgate he replaced was the worst part on it, and it needed front fender repair which he had done, and it still needs outer rockers, but that's it for rust. The bed and wood mounting lips are very straight and super nice. Will make a great truck that will be relatively easy to get re-painted which I hope to do soon. I had bought a super solid Southern California rust free 1960 GMC Suburban several years back and had it stripped to bare metal and disassembled for paint, but I am going to back up and punt now that I have what I really wanted all along so if anyone needs a near mint Suburban body shell, or a shell and any number of related parts like 3 rows of mint seats etc let me know. More pics of this 1960 project as I get it off my trailer this week and check it all out better.....