Photos: Chadly Johnson Words: Chadly Johnson and Ward Johnson
Ward Johnson may have purchased his 1955 Chevy 3100 just to tinker with, but fate had bigger plans. To get the story behind how this beauty came to be, I’ll let Ward take over with the details.
“Even though my family’s focus was on raising farm animals and show horses, I grew up a gear head starting with a lawnmower powered go-cart back in 1966. From there I got my first motorcycle in 1968 and started racing in 1971, when I spent a summer’s salary on a 1971 125 AT1MX for $580.00. In high school I bought my first car, a 1971 Camaro for $2,000, which I blew up driving to school one morning because the block was frozen due to no anti-freeze.
“After blowing up the engine, and having a lack of funds, I built a new engine from parts purchased at a junk yard. I knew enough by that time to recognize factory high performance parts and was able to assemble an engine that had too much power for my driving ability, which resulted in a crash while street racing.
“After a brief stint at drag/street racing and totaling the Camaro, the van craze was just becoming big so I purchased a 1967 Chevy van (no window work truck) for $600.00 and turned it into a cruiser. Due to the van craze being at full steam, I was able to sell my 1967 Chevy van for five times what I paid for it and bought a “Cal-Custom” 1974 Chevy van which I took delivery of in Southern California when I was 18 years old.
“Cars and motorcycles took a back seat to family and career until my kids got old enough to start riding/racing quads and motorcycles. We got into dune riding, which ultimately led into building a 1988 250R and 1989 Banshee into unbeatable dune machines. From there, I got back into riding motorcycles and periodically raced motocross, scrambles and desert events on an amateur level up until about six years ago.
“Around 1990 or ‘91, my next door neighbor gave me a box of parts stating that it was a complete 1971 JT60. I took the box of parts, assembled them and put together a complete motorcycle which was able to be ridden by my kids. It was fun putting that bike together and led me into purchasing and/or restoring 30 or so vintage 1970-74 125cc MX dirt bikes which I still have today, along with a totally original, un-restored 1988 Banshee (first year made).
“As for cars, somewhere along the line, I purchased the 1970 LT1 Black Yenko Nova recreation used in the movie “Italian Job.” The car was flawless and very fast; however, it became boring to me real fast because there was nothing that could be done to it to make it faster or better than it was. Furthermore, the paint was so nice I was afraid to drive it or leave it parked anywhere.
“I sold the Nova after owning it for only a short period of time and started buying vehicles that I could tinker with. I installed a BendPak hoist at work and started working on vehicles primarily to restore and/or modify their running gear to make them fast, safe and reliable to drive. The cars that I have restored mechanically include a 1955 Chevy 210, 1976 Bronco and a 1974 VW Bus. My son is currently using the work hoist to install a 2015 Coyote engine into his 1994 Cobra (following in Pop’s footsteps).
“I purchased the 1955 Chevy 3100 because I have always liked them since high school. I searched for about a year until I found one listed on Craigslist locally. I went out to look at it and found it to be owned by a contractor (similar to myself) who has enjoyed tinkering with cars/trucks since his high school days (similar to myself). He told me that he had purchased this truck with the intent to “tinker” around with it but never did much with it other than take his wife out on Friday night “date nights” due to the many other car/truck projects he had going on.
“I purchased the truck with the intent of “tinkering” with it myself and brought it back to my shop. My initial thought for this truck was to install an Art Morrison frame (their shop is very close to mine), install a new Chevy motor/trans along with wheels/tires while leaving the body and interior untouched. In going down the road to do so, I spoke to Art Morrison about painting the frame and they referred me to MetalWorks, who buys, sells and paints a lot of their frames. After talking to MetalWorks, I found that I could purchase the Art Morrison frame through them for less than I could purchase it directly from Art Morrison; therefore, the decision was made to move ahead with MetalWorks for the purchase and painting of my frame.
“After sourcing the engine/trans, wheels/tires and misc. other parts I started thinking that this is going to be a real nice truck, therefore I should probably have it painted and put in another call to MetalWorks inquiring about painting. MetalWorks explained to me that they could paint the truck – however, to do so, they required that they would have to disassemble and reassemble it themselves. This made total sense to me; however, it pretty much took the entire build out of my hands and into theirs. This actually worked out OK for me because as it turned out the construction industry in Western Washington was so busy I wouldn’t have had any time to work on it myself.
“In summary, the 1955 Chevy 3100 came out exactly the way I wanted it and will be something that I will keep the rest of my life. I found the staff at MetalWorks very knowledgeable, friendly and very easy to work with on my project. I definitely plan on sending another project their way.”
