The Story
A quarter-century of wrench time
Twenty-six years ago, a 1969 GMC Stepside came home in pieces — and stayed that way for a long, beautiful while. What followed was decades of nights and weekends: metal shaped by hand, parts hunted down and rebuilt, standards raised again and again.
This isn’t a checkbook build. It’s a life’s work measured in shop hours, scarred knuckles, and the quiet stubbornness of never saying “good enough.”
TRUKROD is the name it earned. This site is the record — every chapter of the build, in order — and home base for the run to Las Vegas.
26Years in the build
9,490Days & counting
820Horsepower, hand-built
78Photos in the archive
Built, not bought
No resto shop. No turnkey catalog. Everything that matters was machined, welded, stitched, or spec’d by the same pair of hands.
- EngineSpec’d & assembled on the garage bench — 820 hp
- TransmissionOwner-built TH400, forged guts
- ChassisFull tube, fabricated in-house
- InteriorCustom-stitched in the garage
- WheelsRallyes widened to order for the widest rubber made
- PaintEarnhardt red, clear coat hand-rubbed