News: 20

I am an Active-Duty Army Warrant Officer and am currently hitting my 16 years of service to our beloved Nation. When I was 11 years old, I would walk to and from school which is where I first saw a classic Mini Cooper. It was abandoned and rusted out, of course, but something about it had me hooked and I told myself then that I had to have one. Fast forward, I’m now 33 years old and after selling our house in Virginia during our PCS move to Georgia, I finally had the money to buy one. It was now or never so I had one shipped from Japan and now the labor of love is ongoing.

We bought this 2002 Ford 7.3 diesel Excursion with 300k miles on the clock. We drove it and loved it for about 40k miles, but 300k on the vehicle started to show so we decided to completely rehab the vehicle. It’s still a work in progress. We picked this project because we have 5 kids and needed a large vehicle that could tow/haul, off-road, and hold a lot of people. None of the newer trucks have the carrying capacity and towing capacity that the excursion has, and a newer vehicle is way out of a decent price range.

My great grandfather bought this 1972 C10 Custom longbed back in 1974. When he died, great grandpa left the truck to my dad. In turn, Dad gave it to me for a first project, and it has been a continuously evolving project truck! I've got to tell you, my dad, brother, and I used to hang out together watching Trucks, and, later, Gearz. I remember seeing Copperhead as a little kid and having my mind blown dreaming about what I could one day do with my truck.

My dad and I started on this 2001 GMC Sierra HD at the beginning of 2025. He bought it new, and it spent 15 years hauling him back and forth to work and our family around in its spare time. It took us camping, boating, to dirt tracks all over Indiana, and when I turned 16 he passed it on to me. It had turned into a spare truck by 2018 and was still in pretty good shape. Dad changed jobs and traded his new truck in on a new vehicle for mom, which brought this truck back into full-time service. He drove it until he retired in 2022.

I play drums in a band (look at my gas pedal!) and was looking for an American pushrod V8 project to play around with that also would fit my drums. Randomly, this 1996 Dodge B2500 van showed up on Craigslist (who uses Craigslist anymore?) for $1000.00 because the guy needed to skip town and he couldn’t get it running. It was a Florida vehicle, so it was rust free, and he set it up as a mini camper with a cool green interior and wood floors with a bed in the back, solar panels on the roof, etc.

This 1959 GMC pickup was my dad’s first vehicle he ever owned. He bought it off a farmer when he was 16 and it has been in the family ever since. Eight years ago, it was left to his brother, who in turn left it to rot in a field of all places. I coordinated shipping to Buffalo, NY and decided I wanted to make the truck my own.

I purchased my 1974 Z-28 new in December of 73 off the showroom floor at Terry York Chevrolet in Encino, CA. The majority of work on the car was completed by the end of 1978-79. I then placed the car in storage where it remained for 38 years (then just an old Camaro now a Classic Car) until Feb. of 2017 when I decided to put it back on the street. 

From the time I was a child, I’ve always had a love for cars, trucks and motorcycles. I stripped and fully rebuilt a 96 F-150 with my daughter before having to sell it because of needing funds for life changes. Since then, I’ve rebuilt and painted a 2007 Honda VTX1300 as well as custom built an insanely fast 235hp 2006 Suzuki Hayabusa. Since I got remarried and now have 6 kids, I get to share my passion with them and they all love it! I picked up this ‘63 F100 in May as a quick refresher project so we could enjoy cruising around in a classic truck.

I've always been a Toyota truck guy since I was little in the early 80's to the mid 90's. I've bought a sold a lot of different Toyota off-road vehicles, but this one was different.

About 3 years ago when my grandson was 14, we decided it was time for him to build his first vehicle. After scouring the internet, we found a 1980 four-wheel drive Chevy LUV. My grandson fell in love with it and that's the main reason why we purchased it. I've always had a project of some sort going since I was about 12 years old starting with bicycles, go karts, and toy cars and trucks. Once we complete it, my grandson is planning on daily driving it for a while, taking in a bunch of local car shows and the occasional regional shows.

This is my original (daily driver) High School car, a 1975 Chevy Malibu/Chevelle. I owned it from late 1989 to 1992, when I sold it. I located it in Frederick, Maryland in 2009 (yes, my original ‘75, VIN verified). It took me seven years to purchase it back from the third owner in June 2016. My son, Mark, and I started to tear her apart in 2018 and had it completed just before Christmas 2019. It needed a lot of love when purchased back. I observed that some of the performance parts/tach & gauges I installed back then were still on the car.

This was my first car in high school back in 2003. My dad (who passed away in 2024) bought it for me as a beater for $2000 from someone who pulled it all apart and couldn’t put it back together. We had to drive it across Phoenix in the summer heat, stopping every 5 blocks to clean silt out of the carburetor. It took forever, but it was a great first bonding experience, of many more to follow, with my dad. He picked up a $900 1967 200-powered Mustang for himself so we could cruise together. He painted them in a rental booth – mine yellow and his orange.

We all have that one hotrod that we saw as a kid that just doomed us with the eternal itch to be a gearhead. For me, the first time I saw a Jeep CJ7 with a v8 and side pipes roaring down the highway, I knew I'd have one someday. Fast forward to 2023, I finally got my first Jeep Wrangler, an ‘88 YJ. Though not my dream CJ7, it was a step in the right direction. Immediately, I put a 350 Chevy under the hood and side pipes and began living my childhood fantasy. After two summers of absolute fun and countless smiles per gallon, the original A999 transmission gave up the ghost.