Our 1954 Chevy truck
has traveled a lot

This 1954 Chevy was found in a small town in Brazil back in 1992. It was in fairly good shape, rusty, transmission skipping gears, bad brakes, bad steering, engine burning oil and so on. But I was able to drive it to another town, about 200 miles away the same day I bought it. Original cost: US$ 1,850.

I had dreamed of a pickup like that for a long time. I remember when they first came out at the end of 1953 and they were beautiful trucks, very different from their predecessors. When I got it many changes had been made to the old truck.

Due to the high cost of gasoline in Brazil (about US$ 2.60 per gallon in 1992) the previous owner had decided to replace the original six cylinder engine with a four cylinder, 151 c.i.d. "Iron Duke" coupled to a four speed manual transmission. The rear end was also replaced to better match the engine. In spite of the small engine it drove well and didn't burn much gasoline.

Two years later I couldn't stand the awful body noise and the fact that the doors kept opening by themselves and thought it was time to finally go ahead and rebuild the truck. The engine and the transmission were near the end of their life and the differential gears had lost a few teeth also. The brake shoes were worn out and the fuel tank, installed inside the cab was leaking. Besides the terrible smell it was dangerous to drive with a leak like that.

In Brazil you can't find a restorer like we have in North America, who can tackle the complete restoration project. You have to look for a mechanic who would be willing to work on such an old truck and you have to look very hard because not everybody wants to do that. The body work has to be done somewhere else as well as the electrical wiring, the upholstery and so on.

Finding parts is another huge problem. There are no distributors there and you have to tour the junkyards and pray a lot to find what you need. Or do as I did and import from the United States. The problem with importing is that a few times I would call the distributor in the U.S. and buy the parts which were shipped out but never got to me. Somebody at Customs there must have an old truck and don't know how to import the parts. Complaining will get you nowhere.

The first thing I did when I decided to do the restoration of my 1954 Chevy was to disassemble the whole truck. I took the frame to a specialist whose shop was located in a town about 35 miles away. The engine and transmission went to a mechanic in another town. The body parts and the bed went to yet another town. Three years and about US$ 8,500 later the truck was ready.

It had the same four cylinder engine which was entirely rebuilt. The four speed transmission was removed and a five speed manual transmission was installed in its place. Everything else was original. The color was changed from red to white.

The most amazing thing was to see the heads turn wherever I drove the truck. And I drove it! I lived in the city of Sao Paulo and had a small farm in the country, 450 miles away and I went there and back at least once a month.

Many times I was being passed by a faster car on the highway and when I looked there was somebody in the car with a camera, filming the old 1954 Chevy 3100 pickup. At almost all stop lights and gas stations there was always somebody asking what year was the truck, how much it was worth and so on.

In 1998 I came back to America and had the truck shipped here inside a 20 foot container. It was a headache to take it out of Brazil because of bureaucracy and greed. I had to go to a dozen different government agencies in order to get all the papers needed to export my truck and everywhere I went there was a fee to be paid. The paper work, stamps, copies, declarations, certifications, affidavits and a bunch of other documents cost me about US$ 2,600 even before the truck got inside the container. Two months later is was arriving at the port of Miami.

No duties were paid upon arrival since the U.S. Customs considered this 1954 Chevy truck as "exported U.S. goods returning." To get the papers and make the truck legal here took about two hours and cost me a little less than US$ 200. 

This was back in April of 1998. During these ten years this 1954 Chevy has been my daily driver in Miami and has been on the highway a few times. But there were a few problems.

The first headache was on a trip back from Naples to Miami (about 90 miles). I had the bad fortune of having the rear axle broken right in the middle of Alligator Alley, on I-75, where I had to wait for three hours for a tow truck. Fortunately there were no alligators to be seen there.

In another occasion the wiring caught fire and if it weren't for the fire extinguisher I always carry with me I would have lost my 1954 Chevy pickup to the flames.

One day the timing set gear broke in the middle of the worst rush-hour traffic Miami has to offer. I took the truck to a mechanic who did a good job on the engine but gave the body of the truck a few nicks and deep scratches. When I complained the mechanic simply took about 5% off his bill and told me to get lost.

The biggest tragedy that thank God never happened was back in 2003 when I went through a few financial hardships and had to put my 1954 Chevy truck for sale. I had it listed for about three months and didn't find a buyer. Things got much better and I was able to keep the truck. I made a vow to keep it forever. 

This story is being written in April of 2008 and the truck is sitting in a shop in Hollywood, FL. After about 11 months there it is almost ready to be painted. It will come out with a new six cylinder engine (250 c.i.d. Chevrolet) and three speed automatic transmission. It will burn a little more gas but it will also perform much better on the Interstate highways and the Turnpike.

The cab now has two new bucket seats. A 1984 Chevrolet Silverado independent front suspension was installed with an adapted rack and pinion power steering. The rear end is also new.

The total cost for the new restoration comes to about US$ 6,000.

My truck is in good shape and looks great but it's not a show truck. It will be driven all the time and it will go to many classic car events during the rest of its life. My 1954 Chevy 3100 pickup is the official truck of we-love-old-trucks.com. Maybe you'll get to see in person one of these days.

CLICK HERE to see Mr. Alan Horwath's great looking 1954 Chevy truck.