A 1982 GMC Caballero, black and silver. I was 15 going on 16 and worked for months score keeping hockey games for the money. I still have it too, though I am in the process of selling it... Almost 15 years later and time and money aren't all that much better and I figure I've got to chose, rebuild a bike that made me grin like an mental patient every time I kicked it over, or rebuild a fraction of my car/truck. Wish I could chose them both...
When I was 17 I was driving home from the market with my brother and mother in the 60/40 seat next to me, coming to a 4-way stop on a downhill, the brakes gave out, as a cement truck was coming through the diagonal!!
Thankfully a lot of pedal pumping and a shift to park and we didn't meet the cement man that day!
It had (had) a 267 4.4l v8 in it, trussed up with smog and emissions everything and a computer aided two barrel carb... I'm not 100% sure what the original transmission was, it was an automatic though. When I bought it it had Corvette wheels with the chrome trim rings and centercaps, still my favorite wheels on there. But when my brother sold his Chevelle 4-door sport (I miss that car too, what a boat!) we offered up the wheels as a selling point.
Eventually my brother and I decided the 'best' thing to do was pull the motor, he found a deal on a 307 from an old Camaro and so in went that with a TH350 transmission. The transmission stayed but the head warped and rather than get it milled like we should have (we weren't even 18 I don't think... so... dumb), we pulled that engine and put in a Buick 350. It was tired but boy did it have torque! Eventually, while I was away finishing highschool out of state, he 'borrowed' that back for his Olds cutlass and I, eventually got another 267 from god-knows-where!
And that's what is in there now, by then it was 2007 or 2008 and I'd moved to NH, I no longer had 'disposable' income or a space to be pulling engines or working on things. When we moved again in 2009, or '10 we used it to haul moving boxes a few towns up, and in 2011 we gave it some much needed paint in an unneeded color, orange...
It needed some fresh paint (rust stopper) badly and the roommate's condition for helping was that I paint it his favorite color, it was a fair deal... Though I've never gotten used to it. I miss the ol black and silver.
in 2012 I drove the snot out of it to work everyday, the most use I'd gotten out of it ever, we took dump runs, hauled construction supplies. I painted the underbody and frame that year too.
Last year it didn't see much use, I'd gotten canned when my store closed and was in the process of starting a new job, just weeks after I'd bought my 'new' '77 CB F2 frame.
I just dug it out of the car cover and what was left of the snowbank, yesterday. I'll probably get it inspected this week and enjoy it a few days more before we list it on eBay or Craigslist.
About the only three things I never did with it that I might have wished were go camping, get icecream, and 'make use of the bed'... Then again, the weather's warming up and I haven't sold it yet...
