Custom fleetside bed
Step sides are very popular and they should be. They are awesome looking trucks but they are sorta, "dime a dozen". I had already decided I really liked the mid-fifties Apaches. I wanted a fleetside but did not like everything about the 1958 Apache, Chevy's first fleetside. The hood bugged me and the twin headlights were just too much. The '55, '56 and '57 Apaches were the perfect truck, but again, they only made stepsides.
So, Apache11.
Let's put a 1959 Apache fleetside bed on a '57 Apache cab. Then let's get rid of the '57 fish mouth grill and put the perfect grill of 1955 on it. Oh yeh, one more thing, I think the rocket rail on the '59's fleetside bed is just ...not for me (some folks love em). Just not me. It looks out of place, an afterthought, trying to capitalize on the newly burgeoning rocket motif. I wished I could tolerate it. It would have saved so much hard work and planning but even though I tried, I can not get past it. It has to go. It is going to be shaved from the bed. So this means a pretty custom rebuild of the bed sheetmetal. Then, after deciding to 86 the wooden bed floor for a modern 1992 steel floor, cutting the rocket rails off a long bed '59 and putting it all back on a late model, 1992 short bed, we had made for a real custom, unique job. The bed is everything on this truck. It has to be perfect and look factory. I do not want some hotrod, custom looking truck. I want it to look just like it would have when it rolled of the factory floor. That is, if this truck would have ever been built. It has to look perfectly stock. When it does, we will have a winner!
