‘59 Chev Apache

The Three C’s

Matt’s Chev Pickup is no stranger to the three C’s already.. Clean, Classy and Cool. Sporting a punchy LS2 and lowered suspension and all the supporting mods that goes with it, this truck was always bound to be a gorgeous cruiser.

Matt had previously owned a few nice pickups already and this time around he wanted it finished off properly and knew that pairing up with Timeless, we could make it happen. We began chatting and I knew already that he had complete faith in our creative direction and what we could offer the truck.

The Canvas

We began early on, prior to the LS swap, with the doors. With such a large door I knew we had plenty of room to make something truly remarkable as a foundation for the style the rest of this interior would follow. A few scribbles and some wild ideas later we had a game plan. One we were both frothing on..

Couple weeks later I had the bare bones of the doors sorted.. it was time for a test fit.

A picture paints a thousand words but let me just talk you through all i’ve done here. Starting with the chrome strips, which are actually polished aluminium. Each of these gorgeous touches had been cut to length, drilled and tapped from the back several times and then finally polished and mounted to the doors. The one that surrounds the centre '“arrowhead” piece was actually waterjet cut to size and hand shaped/sanded/polished to the stunning borer you see before you. A tedious task but a necessary one. These doors will ultimately be all black to match Matt’s black TMI seat he’d already purchased. Knowing this, I needed a way to diffuse all that black in one place.. Sticking true to that 50’s flair, I knew chrome was the answer. (Ally in this case).

Another great feature I used to break up the black was the routered grooves and chamfered edges speckled around the door. The beauty of these features is the way they hold and also reflect the light on its curves and angles. Even as bare MDF you can see this effect in play.

Lastly, you’ll probably have guessed already that the stainless mesh was to hide and house the door speakers. I’m a big fan of a nice sound system in cars but not of the ugly factory grills they come with. Hence this juke box esk inspired hidden grill.

All this, combined elegantly together and complimenting each other would soon become of of my favourite door cards yet..

A simply gorgeous finish, couldn’t be happier with that final fit up. Definitely unlike anything else I’d done before or even seen on a truck like this.

From there I had the idea to continue those ally strips into the kickpanel.. just to make for a flowing interior that worked to compliment each other piece and flow really well. Again, an excellent finish I was over the moon with.

The final touches

Last thing for me to complete was the floors. Again, a nice blank canvas for me to work off I began with some deadening and soundproofing. This was quite the ‘deluxe’ package for this truck, offering 3 layers of not only deadening for those thin floors but also a layer of insulation and finally a dense heavy rubber layer to offer a nice flat finish to the layers.

With the floors prepped and ready to go I ripped straight onto the floors. Though the doors and kick panels were quite wild and custom, I wanted to keep the floors more traditional and clean. We opted for black classic loop pile carpet with a nice black bound edge. On paper, sounds very plain and boring but the results were anything but.

As you can see, it’s what you do with what you have that makes for an exemplary final product. This floor was no exception. You’ll notice we even trimmed the side step too, a great way to accentuate this quirky 50’s pickup feature we find. Not even the gearboot surround and gearboot were safe as we tied them in beautifully with the rest of the truck. A great finish to this interior build.

Final words & Photo dump

Even I was blown away by how much of a transformation this interior went through. Only really doing the doors, kickpanels and floors on this one but what an interior it turned out to be. Matt was absolutely stoked with the job and so were we. It’s a damn good feeling knowing how appreciative the customer is of your work and I know for sure Matt will be out showcasing the wheels off this thing.