Matthew Petrosian's '62 C10 "Dreamsicle"
Carolina Truck Shop's first blog post was written by Upstate SC GM Truck Club member, Matthew Petrosian. Be sure to follow the progress of Matthew's build of The Dreamsicle on our Projects Page. Carolina Truck Shop is honored to to work on this cool 62 C10!
It all started when we bought a house in 2015 in San Jose, California. With the house came work, and I needed a truck to haul things for yard work and to the dump. So, I had two choices: buy a newer truck or buy an older truck. While doing my research I came across the C10 Club of San Jose on Instagram which happened to meet every Friday a mile away from new our house. Once I saw the camaraderie and how much fun everyone was having with their trucks, I knew a vintage Chevy truck is what I wanted.
My next research topic was to find out what year of Chevy truck I should buy. I know I wanted to start looking at the models in the early 60’s because growing up, my grandpa had a 1962 Chevy Impala that was white with a blue interior. He had nicknamed it the white shark and we shared a ton of memories in that car.
When I got on Craigslist and looked for C10s in the early 60’s I immediately fell in love with the 60-63 body style. I quickly realized the 1962 C10 had a unique grill and I wasn’t able to find very many available. I searched Craigslist every day for weeks until one day, I found a gentleman selling a 1962 C10 long bed fleetside, automatic, rebuilt small block 350, and fancy 54 Chevy Coupe hubcaps with Bias-Ply white walls. He happened to be a mechanic and was offering to sell it for cash and trade of any electronic items. This was perfect for me, as my wife and I had moved in together and we had a couple items to trade. I met him at his shop on a Monday afternoon with cash, a tv, and Blu-ray player in hand. We talked for about an hour, looked it up and down, and went on a test drive. Before I knew it, I was the owner of an orange 1962 long bed fleetside C10 in need of a cool nickname.
While driving home that day, it dawned on me she was just like the classic ice cream bar. With the orange body color and a cream grill and bumper, I realized the perfect name for the truck was Dreamsicle. Just a few days later, I was able to drive the mile down the street and meet the local C10 club chapter for the first time.
From then on, I was hooked, and I immediately met a solid group of members and got inspired to work on my truck. Months of cruising and meetups later, one night at the burger joint before the weekly cruise my new truck friends and I threw around the idea of going to Brothers Truck Show in Orange County that summer. After some thought, a group of us decided to do it and a couple of us were determined to drive our trucks. We prepped our trucks a little more over the next few weeks, booked hotel rooms, and made a trip plan.
The time had finally come and we met at 4 a.m. to begin the drive. I drove the Dreamsicle 600+ miles round trip in 90+ degree weather with no A/C to the Brothers Truck Show where the Dreamsicle was the first up and first down on the famous Grapevine section of I-5 freeway in Southern California. Even in the close to 100-degree weather she didn’t overheat and the only problem I had was some oil leaking out of the oil cap from the high RPMs. One of the coolest things of taking the Dreamsicle to the Brothers show was the chance to meet C10 clubs from all over the western US. We are so lucky to have such a great group of people to hang out with, it doesn’t matter where people are from, these trucks bring us together!
After the Brothers Truck Show, some of the C10 club members and I decided to enroll in a body shop class at a local community college. Every Wednesday night, we would meet for 3 hours in class working on our trucks and learning new skills. This is where I was able to fix the front fender that was damaged before I bought it. As a club, we continued to grow and cruise weekly, attend local car/truck shows, participated in charity drives, and enjoyed many Goodguys car shows in Pleasanton, California.
Fast forward to October 2017, my wife got a new job and we were relocating to Greenville, SC. With the move came decisions of what goes and what doesn’t. There was never a question, the Dreamsicle was coming with us. I quickly did research and found both C10 South Carolina and Upstate GM Truck Club as new opportunities to once again meet a great group of members who share the same interests, C10 trucks! I had the Dreamsicle professionally trailered the 2,500 miles from San Jose to Greenville. The first event the Dreamsicle attended in SC was a Thursday get together in Piedmont and I immediately knew this would be a great truck family to get to know. We built a new house and made sure to include a 3rd car garage specifically for the Dreamsicle. Now that the truck can be protected in her own garage, it is time to invest in bigger and better things for the Dreamsicle. We are so excited to be here in SC and absolutely grateful for the great new friends we have made already in this new chapter of our life. Stay tuned to see what the Dreamsicle is up to at Carolina Truck Shop in 2019!