News: 20

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.