anny Carrasco, of Chino Hills, California, is a certified Tri-Five Chevy truck purist. From the time he was a teenager up until now (42 years old), there has always been something about 1955-1957 3100s that has lured him into starting one fresh build scenario after another. Over the years he’s owned other types of classic cars, but when it comes to pickups, he always comes right back to this specific model.
anny Carrasco, of Chino Hills, California, is a certified Tri-Five Chevy truck purist. From the time he was a teenager up until now (42 years old), there has always been something about 1955-1957 3100s that has lured him into starting one fresh build scenario after another. Over the years he’s owned other types of classic cars, but when it comes to pickups, he always comes right back to this specific model.
Danny knows from previous personal experience working with Premier on his last major Chevy truck build that having an actual truck isn’t necessary since they specialize in manufacturing 1947-1953 and 1955-1959 licensed GM truck complete bodies and also now offer 1967-1972 C10 bodies! This is huge for someone who doesn’t want to make multiple trips to the junkyard to buy a few different trucks just to have enough parts to piece together for one solid starting point. However, this project did take some time to pin down a set of ideas that would serve as the main building blocks for what the truck would ultimately become.
To get the project started, Danny knew right at the jump that a full custom frame was in order. He’s been through enough of these projects to know that it’s always easier to aim higher and start from scratch, but since there was no actual truck to begin with here, the decision was that much easier to make. Running with a customized Total Cost Involved (TCI) chassis equipped with RideTech ’bags, Wilwood brakes, and a Currie Ford 9-inch rearend was definitely the way to go to achieve the modern ride quality Danny was after. To finish off the chassis, a set of 20- and 22-inch Budnik G-Series tungsten wheels wrapped in 245/35ZR20 and 285/30ZR22 Nitto INVO rubber gave the truck a sense of elevated style and performance into the equation.
As far as the engine and drivetrain combo was concerned, the guys opted for a new GM LS3 crate engine and transmission from Gandrud Chevrolet to get the truck moving in the right direction. To spice up the fresh mill, a Performance Rod & Custom radiator, Holley intake, and one-off exhaust system featuring Borla S-Type mufflers were thrown into the mix.
To fully capitalize on the Premier team’s level of bodywork, Danny and the guys had put a big emphasis on paint selection and had been tossing ideas around for the better part of two months. “I had a vision of gray paint and a red interior, but deciding on the shades of the two colors proved to be harder than we thought,” he says about their painting woes. “It wasn’t until I was at the Honda dealership picking up a part for my daily driver that I saw the direct inspiration for the colors we ended up running with.”
It was one of those sporty hatchback Civic models in the showroom that caught Danny’s eye, and the paper on the window listed the paint color as Sonic Gray. That’s all the info Jason Deering at Premier needed to get the PPG color loaded in his paint gun before covering the freshly assembled and contoured 1956 body with its new hue. Deering, along with Ross Logsdon, then cooked up some custom graphics for the hood that gives the truck a subtle splash of street rod flash.
While a true vintage, 65-year-old pickup with hundreds of thousands of miles on the odometer can one day look as good as this “brand-new” version comprised of hundreds of components with a combined amount of zero time on the road, it’s no longer necessary to start a truck build with an actual truck at its nucleus. Premier Street Rod is helping get more of these classic Chevy trucks back on the road, even if it means making them from scratch.
A project like this requires an all-hands-on-deck approach, and Danny would like to thank all the manufacturers and talented artists for coming aboard to assist in their own special way. “Aside from the companies that have already been mentioned so far, I’d like to extend a shout-out to Billet Specialties for the steering wheel, Mar-K for the wood bed floor, Lokar for the door handles, Steele Rubber for all the seals needed for the entire truck, Lucky’s Classic Auto Glass, Glide Engineering, American Autowire, Trique Manufacturing, Eddie Motorsports, United Pacific, Pinstriping by Chris, Goolsby Customs; we couldn’t have pulled this off without you all.”