Restoring an Iconic Truck Originally Built at Hot Rods By Boyd for Eddy Van Halen
It might be a little early to get nostalgic about a 1993 Chevy Cheyenne pickup. I mean, a kid born that same year wouldn’t even be old enough to vote until 2011. In fact, we just checked out our local craigslist.org site and the average price of a 1993 standard cab Chevy pickup was $2,500. Granted, most of the trucks for sale there looked like they had been ridden hard and put away wet, and a lot of them had more miles on them than your average retired UPS truck.
So what makes this truck so special? Well, first of all it was conceived and is still owned by guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen. It was actually one of two trucks that were built at Hot Rods By Boyd in the Chip Foose-era for Eddie; the first being a giveaway truck. This truck was and remains Eddie’s personal truck, and it featured an LT-1 power plant and Corvette independent rear suspension. It had huge (for the time it was built) 17-inch one-off Boyd wheels that were inspired by the graphics on Eddie’s signature guitar. The graphics on the wheels matched the graphic stripe that runs around the belt line of the truck. The pair of trucks was a huge hit with enthusiasts, and the truck that Eddie actually took home saw a lot of time on the streets of Southern California.
It is no big secret that Van Halen went on tour after tour to support hit album after hit album. And that cool little truck that was parked on the side of the house in pristine condition when Eddie left was a little worse for wear when the touring finally came to an end a few years later. Sure, there were little breaks here and there, but there is a lot of other stuff to contend with when you are only home for a couple of weeks between legs of touring the world. Being on the road sounds like a lot of fun, until the reality of not being home to see your family or play with your toys kicks in.
By the time Eddie was back home full-time from touring, he had more important stuff to do then play with his truck. So it sat in the same spot where he had parked it when he had left to go on tour and there it sat being exposed to the sun, rain, wind, and whatever else Mother Nature wanted to throw at it. That is until the day that Eddie had to move something around the sad-looking truck, and he stopped and took a long look at the truck that was serving as driveway sculpture. At that moment he decided that the truck would be better served in the hands of someone who could appreciate its rich history, but not looking the way it did. He went back in the house and called his buddies at San Diego Classic and Muscle Cars, a company he has used to restore some past projects, and told them about his ideas of restoring the truck and then sending it through the Barrett-Jackson auction. Joe and the crew from San Diego Classic and Muscle Cars hooked up the trailer to their shop truck and headed up to Eddie’s house in the Hollywood Hills to get the rough-looking pickup.
The first stop was at American Hot Rods to have the bodywork all straightened out, the exterior repainted and the issues with the drivetrain all ironed out, including a repair on some of the rear suspension linkage. The next stop was MagnaFlow to have the exhaust completely redone in stainless steel. And then the truck was dropped off at Extreme Audio in Riverside, California, where the auto sound system was brought up to date with some new Memphis Car Audio components. When the truck finally made it back to San Diego Classic and Muscle Cars there were a brand new set of 18- and 20-inch one-off wheels from Chris Coddington that are just larger diameter versions of the original 17-inch wheels that were on the truck—even the early center caps fit the new wheels!
Overall the restoration was more successful than even Eddie had imagined. In fact, Eddie was so taken with the way the truck looks that he signed the glove box door for posterity. Eddie would like to thank Joe at San Diego Classic and Muscle Car, Duane and Bernt from American Hot Rods, MagnaFlow exhaust, Extreme Audio, and the Sons of Boyd for helping during the restoration of this iconic truck.
The original LT-1 that was installed at Hot Rods By Boyd still lives under the hood of this famous hauler.
The stock GM live axle was replaced with an independent rearend from an early 1990s Corvette by the crew at Hot Rods By Boyd and restored by the crew from American Hot Rods.
The restoration even went so far as to re-create the Hot Rods By Boyd signature on the truck’s tailgate.
The crew from Extreme Audio updated the auto sound system using a bunch of state-of-the-art Memphis Car Audio gear.
