Steve Green grew up in the USA but has spent the past 31 years in Australia, so while the Noo Yawk accent has softened a fair bit, no amount of bush chooks and g’days can fully hide his Yank heritage.

First published in the September 2022 issue of Street Machine

And in keeping with that heritage, the string of nice cars Steve has owned over the years have been mostly of the US muscle variety, but these were always really shiny and didn’t get anywhere near the use his current ride does. While this old C10 might look a bit weathered, it’s got all the comfort and performance that Steve was after, but even better, he can beat up on it all day, put it away wet, and jump in and do it all again the next day.

As it turns out, a humble C10 was one of Steve’s formative automotive influences. “When I was a kid, I used to go down to my grandfather’s house in Georgia; he had a Sinclair petrol station down there,” he recalls. “He bought a ’64 Chevy C10 in 1964, when I was seven. I used to sit in his lap and he would teach me how to drive.”

About five years ago, Steve sold his ’72 Camaro and was looking around the internet for a new project. “There was a guy in Queensland named Cohen Arthur who would go to the US three times a year, buy a pick-up truck, pick up a whole bunch of Harley parts and bring the whole lot back,” he says. “This was about the 10th or 12th truck he brought back and he said it was really solid with no rust, and it was true.” Once Steve got his hands on the truck, it wasn’t going to stay original for long. He had plans, and he knew exactly who to approach.

A year or two prior, Steve had spotted Kevin Edwards’ ’66 F100 (SM, Sep ’15) at the WA Hot Rod & Street Machine Spectacular and was certain he was the right guy to take on the build. “I had a vision of what I wanted – a pretty high-horsepower motor and modern suspension – and I just said to him, ‘I don’t want to skimp on anything, so let’s just try and get the best we can get,’” Steve says. “There are no shortcuts with him.”

With those fairly broad build requirements in mind, Kevin researched which suspension package would work best and give Steve the performance he wanted, given his previous ride was a pro touring Camaro. Kev opted for a United Speed Shop IFS, which comes with everything: sway-bars, Baer brakes, coil-overs and power rack-and-pinion steering. For the rear, a McDonald Brothers four-link with double-adjustable coil-overs got the nod. It locates the Currie nine-inch diff, which has a Strange 35-spline centre with Truetrac, all put together by the champions at Final Drive.

“We tried to do as much as we could so that it would handle well and hook up,” Steve says. “It brakes and steers like a modern car and has surprisingly little body roll, and it gets more looks than the Camaro did! Everybody loves it. A modern car is still much more refined, but this is like an analogue experience versus a digital experience.”

The chassis has been flow-notched three inches and boxed, which was a piece of cake for Kev. He’s got a long history in mini-trucks and getting stuff slammed on the ground with airbags, so he did struggle a bit when Steve wanted the truck built with static suspension. “I never wanted the up-down thing,” Steve says. “To me, it’s like having a showerhead with 15 settings. How many do you use after the third shower? One.”

For reliable modern horsepower with the added cool factor of being supercharged, it’s hard to go past an LSA. The one in the C10 is a crate motor that’s had a few updates to give it a little bit more grunt. There’s a 100mm throttlebody, water-to-air intercooler, smaller pulley and bigger injectors, which adds up to over 500hp at the rear tyres. It’s matched up to a 6L80E transmission, but instead of working in some kind of late-model shifter, Kev modified the Ididit column by filing the shifter detents to suit the six-speed.

The interior also features an Alpine iLX-F309E touchscreen head unit, with the Rockford Fosgate amp and speakers mounted behind the seat in a custom fit-out performed by Grant’s Car Stereo. The original bench seat copped some extra bolstering and headrests, and was then retrimmed in black leather with turquoise cloth inserts from a VW Beetle, which matches the exterior perfectly. There’s also a removable armrest replete with cup holders.

The patina-flecked paint the C10 wears is original as well, apart from the rear tubs, which were fabricated by Kev and then painted to match the rest. “It’s probably been resprayed a couple of times in certain areas, but it is the original paint, so we kept it that way,” Steve says. “There’s a lot of patina on the top edge of the tray, so we matte-cleared over it to lock it in and stop it from rusting.”

With the C10 complete, Steve reckons he’s all done with custom cars and trucks now, but thinks everyone should do it at least once. The trick is finding the right people to help out and see your vision through to completion, and he’s absolutely stoked with how the pick-up turned out. “I wanted something that you could drag-race Harleys with at the lights, but if you want to drive it like a grandma, it just chugs along; you wouldn’t even know it had any grunt. How often do you have a fantasy where the reality equals it? That’s not what usually happens in life.”

STEVE GREEN
1964 CHEVROLET C10 SPECS

THANKS
Kevin Edwards; James England at Proshine for the Hoosier lettering; Josh at LSX Powertrain for a great transmission build; Kieran Featherstone at deSIGNco for the old-school lettering on the bonnet; Grant and his team at Grant’s Car Stereo; Final Drive for building and maintaining the 9in; United Speed Shop for the amazing front end; McDonald Brothers for the awesome four-link.