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Built between 29th-30th June 1966 and dispatched to the USA for a personal export delivery.
PRP 279D arrived back in the UK in the.
£Please enquire
Here At Murray Scott-Nelson We Are Able To Create The Ultimate Austin Healey. We Have Been Restoring Healeys For Over 30 Years With Many Concours Wins To Our Name.
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Your classic car represents a major investment and it requires high quality regular maintenance to protect its value
and to give maximum trouble free enjoyment.
At Murray Scott-Nelson we cater for all aspects of paintwork, from full bare metal resprays to small scratch repairs. Over the years, along side Austin Healey’s, MG’s and Jaguars, we have also painted Aston Martins, Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s and Porsches.
Parts & Accessories
Murray Scott-Nelson provide a wide range of classic car parts, vintage car parts, Austin Healey car parts and car accessories for all classic car owners and enthusiasts.
Over recent years we have prepared cars for classic rallies such as the Mille Miglia, Three Castles and the Scottish Malts, all resulting in excellent rally experiences. When preparing for such rallies your car needs to be prepared to the highest standard to enable problem free rallying.
Steve’s 1952 Chevy Truck
One of the coolest parts of a patina hot rod is the visible history. The scars and oxidized paint that come from a long life well lived are on full display. Combine that with the obvious worry-free nature of an already imperfect paint job and it’s not hard to understand why cars and trucks like Steve Silva’s ’52 Chevy are so popular.
This truck has a very cool profile.
For Steve, there’s a lot of personal history visible on this truck in addition to the sun-baked perfection on the outside. To really understand all the neat and unexpected details, we have to start with Steve. His dad was a hard-working mechanic who could fix anything. His shop, Mac’s Garage, was the destination for anyone in need of a repair, whether it was an engine that wasn’t running right, an automatic transmission in need of a rebuild, or even a busted washing machine. He was even known for helping out the neighborhood kids with repairs to their bicycles. Steve and his brothers grew up in the shop and learned how to turn wrenches from their dad. Steve would go on to take over the business in the late 70’s and continued his dad’s legacy of treating people right and fixing anything that needed it. See that lettering on the doors of Steve’s truck? That’s no fictional shop, it’s a multi-generational family business.
Mac’s Garage was Steve’s dad’s shop, and it’s where Steve and his brothers learned how to turn wrenches.
Mac’s Garage also ran a wrecker service, dragging in roadside casualties from nearby Route 66. This led to a surplus of early iron that provided Steve and his brothers plenty of candidates for their teenage hot rods and customs. One particularly memorable creation belonged to Steve’s brother Joe. He put together a ’54 Ford with a dual quad 392 Hemi that made for one mean hot rod. You might not expect to see an early Hemi in a Chevy truck, but Steve never forgot that swapped Ford from his youth, so he sought one out for his truck. This one is a 325-incher from a ’56 Dodge. Steve rebuilt it and topped it with two Holley 4-barrels, just like brother Joe’s wicked Ford from all those years ago.
You might be expecting an SBC, maybe an LS or a Stovebolt 6, but the 325-inch Hemi is definitely unexpected.
Decades spent working in the shop has made Steve into a pretty remarkable builder. In fact, his friends call him “Mr. Gadget” because he can figure out how to fix or fabricate anything. Check out that dashboard. It’s out of a ’61 Imperial and has been sliced and diced to fit. But that’s not the amazing part. Steve made the stock push-button transmission controls work with the truck’s 4L60 transmission. How cool is that?
The wacky dash is from a ’61 Imperial, but the coolest part is that the push-button gear selector still works.
Steve’s fabrication skills were also applied to the truck’s original chassis. A Nova front clip was welded up and the 9-inch rear hangs from a triangulated 4-link built by Steve. RideTech airbags handle the stance, and it rolls on 17-inch Torq Thrust II’s from American Racing. Steve even made up his own disc brake kit for the front using 12-inch rotors from a Cadillac and calipers from a Ford Expedition.
Here’s Steve’s truck under construction. In spite of the funky exterior, the chassis is very well-built and detailed.
This truck has attitude in spades.
One of our favorite details on Steve’s truck are the ’49-’50 Oldsmobile turn signal bezels tucked under the headlights. Like everything else on this truck, there’s a story here. When he was a little kid, Steve remembers being at a football game and seeing a truck in the parking lot that had been modified by the local custom shop. It had those neat Oldsmobile turn signal bezels under the headlights and Steve never forgot it. Years later, he hunted down a set to use on his own truck.
We can’t get enough of the Olds turn signal bezels.
Remarkably, Steve’s truck has been on the road for 16 years now. He’s been everywhere in it, logging over 50,000 trouble free miles. After we shot these photos at the Goodguys Southwest Nationals in Scottsdale, Steve and his daughter took the scenic route home to New Mexico and swung by the Grand Canyon on the way. Steve’s not afraid to drive this thing anywhere and has made too many road trips to Goodguys and NSRA shows to even count. He’s driven it to Bonneville and on Power Tour and Americruise. Even when Steve isn’t out on the road with his truck, his road warrior is still in the public eye at good friends James Bozo and Anna Cordova’s Route 66 Auto Museum in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
This is the gas filler. Cool.
There’s plenty of history visible in this truck’s funky exterior. There’s even more personal history baked into it by one thoughtful and talented builder. And it’s making more history every day, as Steve continues to roll on the miles and add to the story of his one-of-a-kind hot rod pickup.
There’s way more to this truck than meets the eye.
Steve and his daughter Rebecca, who has been in the passenger seat for many of the 50,000 miles that have passed under the old truck.
Cracks
These are often small – less than a half inch in length – and often appear on areas exposed to a lot of body flex, such as the upper or lower ends of body panels. However, like bubbles, they can pop up anywhere. And as with bubbles, if you find one, don’t disturb it until it’s inspected by the dealership.
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Other Issues
There are several other paint problems we haven’t listed here. You may see “orange peel,” which is a rough, pebbly finish, or runs, or dirt trapped under the paint. These don’t suddenly develop; instead, they’re problems that occurred during the original painting process. You or your dealership should have picked up on things like that before taking delivery. You may also see swirls or “spider webbing,” which are usually caused by poor washing and maintenance techniques.
Industry analysts say that some 25 per cent of vehicles roll off the assembly line needing some type of finish repair. If you find a problem, then you have to ask yourself: Will you be happy with a dealership body shop’s paint finish? That’s a discussion for another day.
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Brian Turner
One of our longest contributors (over 30 years) Brian Turner is a veteran of the automotive repair world with over 4 decades of service. His career has taken him from independent shop management to a stint at AMC Jeep Renault’s Canadian head office to a variety of OEM dealerships in parts and service management. He still has a busy day job at a dealership counter today.
Experience
He began his writing for the Ottawa Citizen where he penned the ‘Ask the Expert’ column, answering motoring questions for thousands of readers. He took his pen on the road, so to speak, and offered similar consumer advice through several smaller news publishers over the years.
As of late he’s taken to the airwaves as a news broadcaster for Lake 88 FM radio where he also hosts his own weekly call-in show on, what else, consumer advice. You can also catch him every other Monday on Calgary 770 AM talk radio when he delivers Motoring Mondays to an eager audience during the afternoon drive time.
His mission is to break down the mysteries of modern automotive technology to help steer vehicle owners down the right road to smooth motoring.
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