1974 C/10 Project "paw paw"

[orngsikL]

1974 C/10 LWB
Rosedale Red
Inline 6 250 with a 3 speed.
Baseline Truck (no power steering, no power brakes, no radio, no a/c)

This truck had been in my wife's family since new. My wife's grandfather purchased the truck from another family member and it was his daily driver. My wife, her dad and her grandfather would take this truck out just about every weekend and tow a boat and go fishing down in Empire, Louisiana. They would also take the truck and go "lightning bug" hunting whenever my wife would go down there as a child to spend the weekend with her grandparents.

My wife and I started dating about 10 years ago, at that time her grandfather still owned the truck and they would still take it to go fishing. Well, hurricane Katrina came in August of 2005 and destroyed her grandparent's house, nothing was left. They managed to save the truck because they took it with them when they left for the storm. So it's one of the only things left. A few years after my wife and I started dating, her grandfather decided to sell the truck. We both wanted the truck, but paying for college was more important. One of my good friends that i have known for about 20 years bought the truck from my wife's grandfather. He drove the truck daily, putting over 50 miles on it everyday. It had about 60K miles when he bought it around 2006-2007. My friend decided to sell the truck and we still couldn't afford to buy it. It was sold local in Denham Springs to a guy about a block from my friend. Every time my wife and I would drive through Denham Springs we would go down the street where the new owner susposedly lived, but never found the truck. We figured it would never been seen again. A few years later, Paw paw passed away.

Fast forward to March 28, 2015, the day after my 30th birthday. I was sitting here at work, where I am typing this now, looking for c10 parts on craigslist for my 72 "orngsikl". Well I went through all the parts in Baton Rouge and got down to the bottom of the page where it displays other local cities. Something caught my eye. The second add was an faded orange c10 with a license plate on the front bumper. I opened the add, and thought "could this be it". Well, low and behold, it was . The truck still had the "retired" license plate on the front that her grandpaw had put on. Oh by the way, my wife called him "paw paw", that's where the build name is coming from...anyway, back to the story.

So, i took a picture with my phone of the ad and texted it to my wife. She must of just glanced at it because I always send her pictures of truck that I like or want. Anyway, i got her usual reply of "no, you got to finish one truck first." I texted her back, "no, go look at that bumper on the front of the truck". She didn't text me back for about 30 minutes, she was crying. She eventually texted me back and asked how I found it and if that was really the truck and told me to call the guy selling it and see if it was still for sale. So I called the number on the add, a gentleman answered the phone and said the truck was still for sale. We started talking and he said he bought the truck for his son's first vehicle, but his son decided he wanted a/c and so he didn't want the truck, he also said he had a bunch of receipts that were left in the glove box, the original owners manual with a name in it and the original build sheet. I gave him paw paw's name and asked if that was what was written on the owners manual or on any of the receipts and he confirmed it. That was it, I knew I had to get this truck.

Well, that was on saturday, on tuesday I went and borrowed a friend's car hauler and a co-worker and I headed down to Raceland, Louisiana. We got there, checked the truck out and confirmed everything. I payed the man his money, did the paper work, and headded back home. On the way home, we stopped at a local church parking lot about a mile from the house and unloaded the truck. I got in and drove it home. My wife came outside crying. She opened the door of the truck and said it still smelled the same.

So, we didnt tell many family members what we had just done. That next weekend I put the truck in the back yard and we had a crawfish boil and invited over family, including my wife's father and grandmother (paw paw's wife).

Everyone couldn't believe we found the truck.

I've got some more pictures to post and will try to get them on here later today.

thanks for checking out the story. More to come.