1951 Chevrolet Truck - Just a Hobby

Bob Matranga's ’51 Chevy Pickup

While growing up, most kids can easily identify their fun time from anything else, especially because they've come up with names for it like "recess" or the more direct "playtime." But, as anyone with a mortgage can tell you, things change and soon less and less of your waking hours are spent in the fun zone.

But there are those who manage to still have fun in their lives—people like Bob Matranga. Bob, a 72-year-old contractor from Newport Beach, California, has always been interested in cars and in 1950, when he was just 12 years old, bought his first car: a Model A Ford for only $25.

Over the next 60 years Bob's interest in cars never waned. He's owned quite a few and along with his son, Kent, started building a few. When Kent was 14, they bought a '34 Ford pickup to fix up, which Kent drove to high school on his 16th birthday and eventually sold in 1979.
In 2003 Bob was working on completing a '55 Chevy Bel Air post project, and had it at Rex Buxton's shop in nearby Irvine. When he would drop by to discuss the progress being made on the '55, he noticed another vehicle going together at the same time: a 1951 Chevrolet truck for another customer of Buxton's.
The truck's factory chassis had been upgraded with a RideTech airbag suspension with QA1 shocks on each corner, and Wheelsmith chrome 'n' black smoothies (15x8 and 15x10) were wrapped in Goodyear rubber. The drivetrain featured a rare, limited-edition ZZ430 engine (430 horsepower, 430 lb-ft of torque) coupled to a 4L60 transmission, and bodywork included adding Suburban wheelwells and subtle changes to the fenders to make the truck look like it sits lower. Painted with Tuxedo Black PPG paint by Eagleton's Custom Paint in Huntington Beach, the exterior is complemented by a two-tone gray houndstooth leather interior stitched up by Gabe's Custom Street Rod Interiors in San Bernardino, California.

It was being built with the same care and attention to detail as his '55, and each time he visited the shop he'd check out the truck, too. The truck got finished before his '55 did, and Bob soon learned the owner was out winning trophies and awards with it. So it was a bit of a surprise when, after a little while, Matranga learned the truck had been put up for sale (the owners were separating and the wife was selling it).

Though he hadn't thought of buying a truck when he got up that morning, he'd certainly been aware of the quality put into the build, so he made an offer on it. After a bit of haggling, a price was agreed upon, and the Matranga's had another stellar vehicle in their stable. As their collection grew, it was apparent they needed to hire a qualified individual who could help maintain and/or build the cars, and they were able to hire Paul Hattrup, the fabricator from the shop who had done the work on the '51 truck.
While on the hunt for more vehicles, Bob had always kept an eye out for the '34 truck he and his son had built more than 30 years ago and, in 2007, was able to track it down in Utah. Without telling Kent, Bob negotiated with the owner to sell it and, after a bit of wheeling and dealing, was able to secure the vehicle and give it back to his son. It turns out in all that time very few miles had been recorded with it and it still had the interior that Kent's grandmother (who ran Taylor's Trim Shop in Costa Mesa, California, for years) had installed in the truck!

So even though the Matranga garage is full of beautiful award-winning muscle cars and street rods, Bob hasn't slowed down or changed his opinion about building, owning, and driving hot rods. After all, he's still the 12-year-old kid who, to this day, really enjoys his hobby. Even though we know this won't be the last vehicle to come from Matranga, we can easily guarantee the next one will be just as nice!

1951 Chevy
Bob Matranga
Chassis
Frame: factory '51 Chevy
Rearend: Currie 9-inch
Rear suspension: four-link, RideTech air bag w/QA1 adjustable shocks
Front suspension: 2-inch drop spindles, RideTech air bag w/QA1 adjustable shocks
Front wheels: Wheelsmith smoothie 15x8
Rear wheels: Wheelsmith smoothie 15x10
Front tires: Goodyear 235/60-15
Rear tires: Goodyear 295/50-15
Drivetrain
Engine: ZZ430 crate (#59)
Valve covers: numbered ZZ430
Manifold / Induction: GM high-rise from Street & Performance / Holley 780-cfm carb
Headers: ceramic-coated Sanderson
Exhaust: 3-inch ceramic-coated
Transmission: upgraded 4L60

Body
Style: pickup
Modifications: bed floor raised 3 inches, tubbed wheelwells
Fenders front / rear: rotated and tops modified
Bodywork and paint by: Eagleton's Custom Paint, Huntington Beach, CA
Paint type / Color: PPG / Tuxedo Black
Taillights: '37 Chevy
Outside mirrors: SO-CAL Speed Shop swan

Interior
Gauges: stock redone by US Speedometer
Air conditioning: Vintage Air
Sounds: DVD player, 1,000-watt amp, Polk speakers
Wiring: Painless Wiring 18-circuit by Paul Hattup
Steering wheel: Billet Specialties banjo
Seats: Glide Engineering
Upholstery by: Gabe's Custom Street Rod Custom Interiors, San Bernardino, CA
Material / Color: leather / black and gray
Carpet: black wool

1969 Chevrolet Camaro - Lifelong Dream

Rare Camaro Was Worth the Wait

Do you remember what life was like when you were 11 years old? Open a dictionary to the word impressionable and you'll likely find an 11-year-old gazing at something—a car, an airplane, a sword, you name it—with newfound wonder. Brain chemistry changes when your age hits double digits. It's like you're seeing the world for the first time. The adult you will become begins to form within that preteen body. If you think about it, your favorite music, movies, TV shows, and of course cars were probably decided around the time you were 11.

So you can totally understand how a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 left an indelible impression on an 11-year-old Mark Vavere. Especially the one he saw on that fateful day. Not only was it a '69 Z (arguably the pinnacle year of first-generation Camaros, looking racetrack-ready with its spoilers and stripes), but it was special one, painted in a striking Burgundy color with white graphics. Squint a bit and the scheme is almost the negative image of the more common orange-with-black-stripe paint job you see so often on Camaros of this vintage.

What Mark didn't know then (but would learn the hard way years later) was that a Burgundy Z/28 is a rare thing. Of the nearly quarter-million Camaros made for the 1969 model year, about 19,000 were Z/28s. And just two percent of all '69 Camaros—fewer than 5,000 cars—were painted Burgundy. We don't know how many Zs got the Burgundy coat, but if you do the math, two percent of 19,000 works out to not even 400 cars.

There were many dead ends and disappointments

If you're an impressionable youth, then, and you spot one of these dusky cars and say to yourself, "Someday, I will have a car like that," well, you have your work cut out for you. Which is exactly what Mark found when he started hunting for that elusive Camaro.

It took Mark Vavere years to find his dream Camaro Z/28 due to its rare color. And then it took him and the crew at Autokraft several more years to finish the restoration. But the results are stunning.

"Had I known how much work and the countless hours I would spend in finding and restoring my dream car, I'm not sure that I would ever have started this quest," he admits. "There were many dead ends and disappointments."

For four years Mark looked for a real Burgundy Z/28. During that time he found exactly two. This is one of them. But it looked nothing like this at the time.

"It was a diamond in the rough," Mark says. "The original owner of the car purchased it new in the spring of 1969 in Austin, Texas. He told me that he had a lot of fun with it and did some back-alley street racing back in the day. The motor had blown up in the late '70s due to a stuck rod and was not repaired. The car had been sitting ever since and had not seen any attention for many years."

We would often spend hours mulling over the tiniest detail

Several factors, though, were in Mark's favor. "The shell of the car was in OK condition, and all three VINs were found on the body and matched the VIN on the motor. The cowl tag verified that it was the real thing with the Code 67 Burgundy paint and the X33 [Z/28] package."

 

The Z/28 package included a wheel and tire upgrade, from the standard 14-inch rims to 15x7s mounting E70-15 raised-white-letter tires.

Mark had the car's carcass and boxes of parts hauled from Texas to his home in Wisconsin, but then began a search almost as intensive as the one for the car—for the right restorer.

"I had heard that Kurt Anderson of Autokraft Race Cars & Restorations in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, did amazing work," says Mark. "After checking numerous references and after much investigation, I knew he was the person I wanted for the job. Kurt was, like me, a perfectionist, and we would often spend hours mulling over the tiniest detail. In the process we became good friends."

"It was a project car in a million pieces," remembers Kurt. "It did have the original matching-numbers block and heads, so that was a huge bonus." Mark and Kurt spent years rounding up parts for the car, many of which were N.O.S. "Mark helped in tracking down parts with the correct date codes since this car was to be done to concours spec," says Kurt. "He wanted the car to be perfect, and he went to great lengths to make sure everything was as correct as possible."

It was a project car in a million pieces

"Sometimes I felt like I was on a scavenger hunt in searching the Internet, want ads, and numerous publications to find the right, authentic parts we needed," adds Mark. "It was like a jigsaw puzzle that was slowly coming together." Mark also had the resources of his car club, the Northstar Camaro Club of Minnesota, to offer advice on parts and services.

As anyone who has done it knows, parts hunting can be a frustrating stage of the restoration. As if that weren't difficult enough, there was another complication. Mark's wife, Wendy, received a cancer diagnosis that rocked the couple. Work on the car had to stop at times so that Mark could focus his attention on his wife. But work did continue, and after about three years the car was finished.

We photographed Mark's car late in the summer of 2014. Wendy hoped to be at the photo shoot with Mark and Kurt, but by then she was too sick to leave the hospital. Three weeks later she passed away. Yet even though she had her own battles to fight, "she understood and shared my dream," says Mark. "I could not have done this without her support."
At a Glance
1969 Camaro Z/28
Owned by: Mark Vavere, Osceola, WI
Restored by: Autokraft Race Cars & Restorations, Eau Claire, WI; Wheeler Racing Engines, Blaine, MN
Engine: 302ci/353hp V-8
Transmission: Muncie M21 4-speed manual with Hurst shifter
Rearend: GM 12-bolt with 3.73 gears and Positraction
Interior: Black vinyl bucket seat
Wheels: 15x7 Rally
Tires: E70-15 Goodyear Wide Tread GT
Special parts: Rare Burgundy color

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Air from the cowl-induction hood feeds this 800-cfm Holley DZ4053 carburetor. Wheeler Racing Engines did a remarkable job on this engine. The components look like jewelry.

1961 AMC Rambler - Early Iron

Until 1972, this 1961 AMC Rambler convertible belonged to the wife of the local Rambler dealer. She sold it to Gary Hoffman's brother-in-law, who drove it for a while, then parked it. When Gary became the third owner, the car was in good condition, with only 35,000 on the odometer. With a new ignition and fuel pump, the Rambler was driveable, but Gary had bigger plans. Nothing radical, just some freshening up, an altitude adjustment, and a creature comfort or two.

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The body was nosed and decked, emblems were removed, and a custom billet grille insert was added. The '85 Corvette taillights replace the stockers. Gary and his wife, Joan, picked Orange Blast, a Dodge Neon color, for the paint, which Gary sprayed.

Cut front coils and 1-inch lowering blocks at the rear leafs drop the car just enough. BFGoodrich radials roll on 17-inch Eagle Alloys five-spokes. The factory inline-six engine was cleaned up and repainted, treated to fresh gaskets, and topped with a single-throat Holley carburetor.

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The dash and everything in it is stock, except for an aftermarket tach and the Eclipse CD stereo mounted in place of the factory AM unit. The door panels are dyed to match the buckskin vinyl covering the factory bench seat.

The end result is a cool little street cruiser. By keeping it simple, Gary can take pride in the fact that most of the work on the Rambler is his own—while giving credit to Mike Wolverton, Glenn Hatcher, and Dave Taylor, who helped with the project.

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Classic Instruments Tech Tip If your gauges are operating erratically, the problem may be caused by electrical interference on the power being supplied to them. The speedometer is especially susceptible to this if you are using an SN16 pulse signal generator or other powered signal source. The signal being sent to the speedometer comes from pulsing the 12V being supplied to the sender. If there is interference on the 12V, the speedometer will interpret it as another signal and will act erratically. To fix this, a DC power line filter can be used in-line with the power going to the gauges. The power filter will eliminate any interference from the power and supply a "clean" 12V to your gauges. This will also help guarantee "clean" signals to your gauges so they will operate smoothly. DC power filters can most easily be found at businesses that install car audio devices, because audio equipment is also susceptible to power interference and filters are used to ensure you don't hear a whine in your speakers while you are driving.

Chad Chambers' 1967 Mustang Fastback

Black Gold

For Ford enthusiasts, particularly those of classic Mustangs, there is an unspoken—yet predetermined—template for modifying and/or restoring their cars. This isn't a bad thing, but it's not unusual to feel that once you've seen one Mustang, you've seen them all. There are those rare gems here and there, like the unexpected Shelby car or a once-in-a-lifetime barn find. Chad Chambers' Mustang doesn't have a story quite like that, yet there is something about this particular Fastback that bridges the gap between the common driver and a diamond in the rough.

The car was purchased in 1996 from Mustang Country in Lakewood, California. Like certain people, cars can have a seedy past, and we were amused to find out this car was something of a thug in its former life. There was a bullet hole through the trunk, a round lodged in the rusty springs and foam under the driver seat, and black ski masks and some crowbars under the back seat. It if could talk, we imagine the car has tales of tire-smoking getaways—an automotive Billy the Kid.

The car was a personal project of Chad's for the first few years of its ownership, but after fiddling with it for a while and putting his kids through college, he decided to turn it over to Wheelers Speed Shop in Huntington Beach, California, eight years ago. He wanted to be able to drive it every day if he wanted to, take it to the track on Saturday, then trek to the local meet on Sunday.

Wheelers was able to make good on Chad's order. The guys at the shop removed the engine Chad had originally built and started with a fresh Windsor block. that included a forged rotating assembly by Scat, a roller camshaft from Comp, and Edelbrock aluminum heads. MSD ignition and Hilborn injection are all kept in check by a FAST EFI system. Despite the potential to make some big power, these modifications were done to maintain the reliability of a docile daily driver but retain more than enough passing power to navigate Southern California traffic.

Putting out about an estimated 500 hp (Chad has yet to dyno the car), Wheelers knew a stout drivetrain was in order. The shop backed the engine up with a Tremec T56 and a Centerforce dual-disc clutch. An aluminum driveshaft sends the power back to the Ford 9-inch rear end. Most enthusiasts know that if you are going to go fast, you need to stop faster. Wilwood brakes do the job just fine and evacuate heat through vented rotors. A nice little touch that Wheelers added was hiding the master cylinder in the firewall to clean up the engine bay and allow a little more breathing room for the 427.

The suspension needed to be able to stand up to not only the occasional track day or autocross but also the pitted and cracked asphalt of Los Angeles. Chad and Wheelers chose to go with a Total Control setup both front and rear. The rear pushrod configuration eliminates any slop and sway that would normally be present with leaf springs, and the front coilovers allow chad more freedom in setting up the suspension than the stock design does.

When it came to the wheels, Chad harkened back to memories of the past: "I like the old Halibrand wheels used on old race cars." Budnik Muroc III's were chosen for the look and BFG rubber was picked for solid road performance.

Some people build cars to show, and some build cars to drive. But spearheading the notion of doing both is Chad and this bit of black gold. The week it was finished, he celebrated by going to SEMA in 2014. He had no desire to trailer it, so he jumped in it with a buddy and cannonballed out there on the first day of the show. He wanted to have a car that he could truly enjoy with all senses. It is visually stunning. It's one of a few road-driven muscle cars that has an interior that smells like it just rolled off a BMW lot. It sounds spunky and ready to charge and feels just as sturdy and planted as a modern production car. Chad takes pride in making his buddies with their M5s and AMGs bow down at the lights now and then, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Did his wife enjoy figuring out how much it cost? No. Does she enjoy riding in it? She's getting there. Just like the rest of us, though, this car was built to fulfill a dream and put that stupid pasty grin on our faces when we give it the gas.

Tech Notes

Who: Chad Chambers

What: 1967 Mustang Fastback
Where: Long Beach, CA.
Engine: Iron block with Edelbrock aluminum heads. All of the internals were provided by Scat and include forged pistons and crank, H-Beam rods, lifters, and roller rockers. The camshaft was provided by Comp Cams and sits below the aluminum Hilborn injection intake. MSD provides the spark and a FAST engine-management system keeps it all in sync.
Transmission: A Tremec T-56 gearbox with a Centerforce dual-disc clutch stands up to the torquey, stroked Windsor.
Rearend: A good ol' Ford 9-inch with heavy-duty axles ensures durability on the road.

Suspension: Wheelers installed Total Control Products' coilover front and pushrod rear suspension. The steering rack was a rack-and-pinion setup, also from Total Control.

Wheels/Tires: The 427KR sits on Budnik wheels, 17x8 up front and 17x10 in the back. BF Goodrich rubber tucks up under the fenders
Body: The all-metal body was formed by Helix in Harbor City, CA. They added little detail that if you weren't looking for them, you'd never know. The rear fenders, for example, were not only rolled like the fronts but also pulled out to accommodate the 10-inch-wide Budnik wheels. When asked what color gold he wanted for the stripes, Chad brought in one of his Gibson Les Paul guitars for reference.
Interior: Gabe's Custom Interiors masterfully crafted full leather upholstery. The factory gauge bezel was filled with Auto Meter electronic gauges, while a Pioneer stereo provides the tunes. Wheelers also fabbed up a half-cage with bars crossing the rear glass and into the trunk.

  

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