Table of contents for Fall 2025 in C10 Builder's Guide

WE’VE BEEN gearing up to embark on a family custom C10 build journey over here for a while now. Passing on this love for custom trucks to your kiddos and enjoying it with your family by your side is something that has rekindled my love for this industry lately. And as I watch my two boys flip through these very pages, the passion has been reignited to start another project build! This time around though will be quite different from the usual mad dash, energy-soaked SEMA all-nighters. This time I really want to soak it all in and enjoy each and every second with my kiddos side-by-side turning wrenches and bringing something old to life again. I let my oldest (Lincoln Alexander, who is 10-years-old now) come up with a…

GET READY TO FEEL THE ground quake because Lone Star Throwdown didn’t just roll through Texas—it shook it to its core. This isn’t some laid-back, pop-the-hood Sunday cruise-in. This is LST—the wildest, loudest, most unapologetically hardcore truck show on the map. We’re talking frame-dragging lows, tower-scraping highs, billetshining clean, and everything in between. And when Mother Nature tried to crash the party with a little Texas rain? We cranked the RPMs and rolled even harder. The fairgrounds in Conroe transformed into a truck lover’s playground, packed bumper-to-bumper with insane custom rigs. From bagged and bodydropped street slayers scraping pavement, to lifted titans flexing sky-high on 28s and beyond, it was an all-out visual overload. But let’s be real—the C10s stole center stage. These aren’t just trucks—they’re rolling testaments to passion…

AFTER TWO years of dedication, long nights, and plenty of wrench time, Project Rocky, our 1979 Chevy C10, was finally completed and proudly featured on the cover of Street Trucks magazine. Now, we are able to share it with our C10 Builder’s Guide readers! This project has been a true journey filled with challenges, lessons, and the support of an incredible team and industry partners who helped bring this vision to life. The goal was clear from the start—take a tired 1979 C10 and turn it into a head-turning, road-ready machine. Stripping it down revealed years of wear, but thanks to KBS Coatings and Rust Seal paint, we laid down a solid foundation with a tough satin-black finish to protect the frame. From there, we dove into the suspension, working…

SOME BUILDS ARE FLASHY. Some are perfect. And then there’s ‘Rufus’—Nick Taylor’s rough-and-ready 1979 Chevy C10 Big 10 that started in a junkyard and ended up a turbocharged pavement-pounder. Built in Davie, Florida, this squarebody isn’t polished for the show field. It’s built to run. And it does—with boost, bite, and no apologies. “I wanted to keep it feeling factory,” Nick says. “But I also wanted the tech to be where it counts.” The stance is clean. The look is mean. And when the turbo spools up, Rufus digs in and rips. Being a full-time firefighter, Nick isn’t the type to stand back while someone else turns wrenches. He handled this build himself over two years, sinking $50K into what’s now one of Florida’s meanest black-patina bruisers. His goal? Simple:…

FOR MOST OF us, seeing cool cars and trucks as a kid can shape what kind of gearhead we will become. Whether it’s classics, customs, or exotics, we all have an early memory of seeing a vehicle drive by and we point and say, “That’s mine!” For Mario Addison, growing up in the part of Birmingham, Alabama known as Vice Hill, he had seen several “old schools”, as we know them as now, rolling around the block on a regular basis. He knew early on he had to have one of these cars when he was older. If Mario’s name sounds familiar, you would be right. He is a decorated NFL player, and even though he played for a few teams in his 12-year career after his college days playing for…

Like any solid build, the foundation had to be right. Jeth wanted a clean, low-slung cruiser that looked just as good underneath as it did up top. IF THERE’S ONE THING WE KNOW ABOUT CLASSIC TRUCKS, IT’S that building them right takes time, patience, and the right crew in your corner. That’s the exact scenario Jeth Gonzales experienced with his 1963 Chevy C10 nicknamed “Jack Fire.” The inspiration came from a buddy’s clean 1964 C10 shop truck. Once the idea was in his head, there was no turning back. Eight months and $70K later, this slick red beauty is hitting the streets—sitting low and stealing the spotlight wherever it goes. Like any solid build, the foundation had to be right. Jeth wanted a clean, low-slung cruiser that looked just as…

SOURCE CVF Racing www.cvfracing.com 651-356-8593 WE’VE BEEN wrenching on this squarebody for a while now, and the build just keeps getting better. If you’ve been following along in past issues, you know we already dropped in a full coilover suspension from Ridetech, and now we’re diving into some of the finer details that really tie it all together. One of those key upgrades? A fresh set of CVF Racing billet hood hinges. These all-billet aluminum hinges are made specifically for 1981–1987 Chevy C10s, and right out of the box, you can tell they’re built to last. CNC-machined from 6061-T6 aluminum, these things are strong, smooth, and just plain good-looking. They’ve got a sleek profile and a clean anodized finish that fits perfectly with the rest of our truck’s style. They’re…

WHEN MOST FOLKS DREAM OF BUILDING A CLASSIC CHEVY truck, they think of patina, a swap meet small-block, and maybe an air ride setup. Todd Collins from Palmerston North, New Zealand, however, had something else in mind. His 1971 C10 is a scissor-hinged, beer-cooler-bed, full-frame-custom kinda ride—and it’s turning heads from the Beach Hop show in New Zealand all the way to SEMA. Todd always wanted to build a C10, so he linked up with Kruzin Kustoms to lay out a plan and get to work. What came out the other end after 2-1/2 years is a wild blend of old-school charm and modern fabrication that looks factory clean but hits hard in every custom category. MODERN MUSCLE MEETS OLD METAL Under the hood is a modern 6.2L LS V-8…

TRISTAN Pengelly has spent years blending and refining his creative art styles and love for custom car culture that began at the ripe age of 14 years old. By 15 he started rendering vehicles to show builders what their dream project could potentially look like. At age 16 he had accomplished his first magazine entry in a Canadian local hot rod magazine, and has been published numerous times since. Renderings by Tristan began based out of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. As Tristan quickly grew a name in the automotive industry for another six years or so, he went out to chase yet another artistic dream of his – to become a prominent tattoo artist. Working hard and creating dynamic new school tattoos like the ones seen in this entry, he…

SOME GUYS BUILD TRUCKS TO STAND OUT. OTHERS BUILD ‘EM to bring back a piece of the past. For Byron Morgan, his 1974 Chevy C10 Cheyenne Super is more than just clean lines and slick paint—it’s a tribute to his wife’s uncle and a deep love for classic squarebodies. This ride’s not just a showpiece—it’s a full-on frame-up revival that took three years and $75K to finish. Built in Rigby, Idaho, Byron didn’t cut corners. He wanted it right, and he made sure every bolt, bushing, and bracket was touched, swapped, or restored. “Every nut and bolt on this truck was replaced and done in my shop,” he says. This ride’s not just a showpiece—it’s a full-on frame-up revival that took three years and $75K to finish. BUILT TO CRUISE,…

HEN IT COMES TO SQUAREBODIES, ERNESTO NUNEZ from the Rio Grande Valley isn’t just a fan—he’s a disciple. But La 88? It’s more than just a truck. It’s a rare Mexico-born, neck-breaking machine that bends the rules and turns heads everywhere it goes. This ain’t your average C10 story—this is a 1988 Chevy Cheyenne that shouldn’t even exist in the U.S. world of squarebodies. But thanks to that one-year extension south of the border, La 88 lives, breathes, and dominates as a true unicorn of the streets. A build like this takes more than time, it takes obsession too. Every detail has been touched, tuned, and tailored. This truck is straight outta Mexico! While U.S. production wrapped the GM squarebody legacy in ‘87, Mexican factories cranked out one last run…