As a student in high school, Howard Kendrick began to find himself admiring the sweet rides cruising around his hometown and taking notice of custom mods made to lowered trucks. Sounds familiar, right? This most likely describes you, as it definitely describes us. Howard started reading Truckin' to get his custom truck fix and as fate would have it, many years later, he ended up in Anaheim, California, which is home to The World's Leading Truck Publication. One sunny afternoon, he ended up in our parking lot with a row filled with lowered, lifted, and custom-painted trucks. He walked into our offices and introduced himself. It didn't take long for us to recognize him, as he's the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's second basemen and all of us at the mag are huge baseball fans. Come to find out, we were fans of his work and he was a fan of ours.
Getting to know each other, he and I talked trucks for hours and hours. When asked what truck he wanted, a quick reply would change the next year of our lives—"I've always wanted a really nice '67-'72 Chevy C10" he said. After that one conversation, the custom truck bug started to eat away at him and one day my phone rang, "Dan, I just bought a '67 C10". With that one purchase, we made a game plan to see his lifelong dream come to fruition. Meeting with Aaron Iha, of Chassis by Aaron, Howard went over his ideas and goals and after some pepperoni pizza, project: The Show was underway.
One thing Aaron and I both really appreciate about Howard is his genuine passion for all things custom, whether it be hot-rods, muscle cars, new exotics, but especially trucks. Don't get this build confused for a guy with a big wallet who wanted something cool. No, this build is an enthusiast's desire to see his dream come true, he just happens to be a professional athlete. Giving Aaron basic free reign over the buildup, the Chevy quickly evolved into a truck like we've never seen before. We're not blowing smoke here—this truck sets the bar to a new height.
Launching the project, this story shows the construction of the chassis, piece by custom piece. Rather than just show you what was created, we decided to get with Aaron and let him tell you how he built the chassis. If you want insight into the mind of someone who eats, sleeps, and breathes custom truck engineering, follow along with The Show buildup, as we'll take you along for every step of this incredilble build.
Before we get started Aaron, is it cool working with a professional athlete?
Working with a professional athlete means two things to me: My hard work is paying off and my name is reaching more and more enthusiasts, regardless of their profession and, I have a reasonable budget to let all my thoughts and ideas be expressed in raw steel. It's amazing to me that such an established athlete would come see me for what I can create with my two hands.
After talking with Howard, what direction did you decide to take on project: The Show?
I was very interested in building the C10 not only for it's great looks and styling, but also for how trendy the C10 is becoming. I researched a lot of really nice C10 projects and some of the ones that were modified to the max still didn't appeal to me. Beginning the project I had concrete ideas, like the frame and suspension, but the over-styling was questionable. My personal taste is comfortable, reliable, user-friendly, and plain badass with a luxurious feel.