In a primal way, the sign on the windshield said it all: “No Sale,” in much the same way a caveman might say “want eat!” or “fire hot!” The owner of the 1946 Chevrolet pickup truck was simply tired of every other car passing his home in China Grove, North Carolina, and stopping to inquire if it was for sale.
Meanwhile, Dan Wampler, just 20 miles away in Concord, was looking for a Chevy truck just like this one.
The truck had been pushed out of the shed when it started to fall down, so it sat for years just 15 feet from the road. And even though it wasn’t “For Sale,” Dan Wampler was able to purchase it. DAN WAMPLER
“I’m partial to trucks and told friends to keep their eyes open for something interesting,” Wampler says. At 60 years old, he’s been looking for something interesting for quite some time. “I had been picking up this part and that part for years, just waiting for the right truck to put them on.”
One day Wampler mentioned to his next-door neighbor, Earl, he was on the lookout for a 1946 or ’47 Chevy truck as a project. “Earl said his brother-in-law had one like that next to his house,” Wampler says.
Wampler is in the process of modernizing the mechanics of this truck but decided to leave the body and paint in its natural “patina.” DAN WAMPLER
You guessed it—it turned out to be the “No Sale” truck in nearby China Grove, and because Wampler was introduced by Earl, he wasn’t immediately chased off the property. “It had been stored in a shed, but when it started to fall down, the owner pushed it out of the shed so it wouldn’t get damaged,” he says. “It sat just 15 feet off from the road! He bought it in 1970 and was just tired of people stopping.”
Wampler had a good conversation with the truck’s owner, who probably realized he would never fix it up the way he had hoped 28 years earlier. The owner complained that purchasing parts was difficult, and besides, he admitted that he was actually a Ford guy.
“I told him if he sold it to me, I wouldn’t chop it all up,” Wampler says. “I told him I would keep the patina just like it was on the body, and just clearcoat the old paint and rust. He came up with a price and I bought it right there.” When Wampler dragged the truck home, he was pleased to discover the original six-cylinder engine had been replaced with a newer 1958–1962 235 cubic-inch version.
Since he began working on the truck, Wampler has been a busy. He works at Keith Irwin Restorations, one of the area’s hot rod shops, so he works on other people’s hot rods during the day and tinkers with his own at night. “The 235 engine runs great,” he says. “I found a rebuilding tag on it, so it’s probably fairly fresh.”
So far, he has installed a Fatman Mustang II front end, Chevy S-10 five-speed transmission, 10-bolt, disc brake rear end, and SS Rally Wheels. “I’m a big fan of Rally Wheels,” Wampler adds. “I have them on all my cars and trucks.”
He and wife, Tammy, plan to use the truck as a daily driver. Tammy is an antique picker and hauls lots of old treasures back and forth to her antique store in Concord.
“It’s going to look old on the outside, but be all late model underneath, because chrome don’t get you home,” Wampler jokes.
