he passage of time has a funny way of changing things. Take for example back in late 1987 when Chevrolet and GMC, after 15 years of producing essentially the same body style for its C10 series pickups, introduced the C/K 1500, which C10 fans then referred to as the “new body style.”

In the 21st century the name has changed but the game is still the same: guys remain infatuated with the clean lines of the C/K 1500 series but the slang name is now OBS (meaning old body style). The C/K series wasn’t the first truck to be offered as a customized special right off the showroom floor … as history reveals, that was the 1956 F-100 right off Ford dealership floors.

That said, the C/K 1500 series, or OBS as people now seem to prefer, was the Typhoid Mary of the sport truck movement, but it wasn’t enthusiasts who coined the “sport truck” name. The sport truck designation originated with Chevrolet naming the earlier Chevy C10 CST model—CST signifying “custom sport truck.”

The debut was a big deal. General Motors invested millions of dollars redesigning and engineering the new C/K 1500 series and then backed it up with major publicity campaigns that included supporting Garry Sowerby in 1987’s Fastest Transit of the Americas—Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, with codriver Tim Cahill in a 1988 GMC Sierra. In addition to the Argentina to Alaska reliability run, General Motors’ campaign to gain public awareness of the new C/K series included sending 12 preproduction 1988 C/K 1500s to Stanton, California, and tasked Boyd Coddington’s craftsmen with giving the trucks the Hot Rods by Boyd treatment.

Without having any idea just how popular the sport truck movement would become, this was a real leap of faith by GM that paid off tenfold. There weren’t aftermarket parts in mid 1987 made specially for the C/K 1500; the series created a new category that exploded. Hot Rods by Boyd’s guys lowered the 1988 GMC 4 inches in the front, not with dropped coils/spindles (because they didn’t exist yet), rather, Boyd’s craftsmen fabricated new lower control arms and whacked the coil springs. In the rear, Boyd’s prototype 1988 GMC used a flip kit fabricated by Boyd’s to drop the rearend 6 inches.

The OBS featured in this article was acquired recently by Aldan American to serve as a shop truck and test mule. Factory finished in Quasar Blue, the 1994 extended cab shortbed with a 4.3 Vortec V-6 was lowered with a basic front/rear drop the minute it was in Aldan’s hands. For the front suspension, unlike Boyd’s, unsurprisingly Aldan installed a pair of their own Aldan American coilover shock absorbers and the nose dipped. In the rear, Aldan’s R&D guy Gary Nelson installed a pair of drop shackles with a pair of shorter-than-stock-length Aldan shock absorbers mounted in the stock position. Typically, a drop executed in this manner affects ride quality immediately, but thanks to the damping benefits of high-quality shock absorbers the results weren’t as drastic.

With the OBS designation comes a rebirth of interest in the 1988-1998 C/K 1500 series and that means in addition to parts than have been available for years there is also a current surge in new products. Naturally since Aldan American is a high-end shock absorber manufacturer they chose to source the latest developments in OBS brake and suspension components to complement their product by using Wilwood’s new dropped spindles and accompanying six-piston disc brake kit.