A 1955 Chevy Pickup Rebuilt Over 37 Years

Alan Galbraith . January 15, 2026 . Features . ALAN GALBRAITH

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From Shop Truck to Showpiece in 37 Short Years

When Dennis Shanahan bought his ’55 Chevy at 17, he had no idea it would take him 37 years to make it into the truck he envisioned. Dennis entered auto body trade school right out of high school in 1974. He purchased the nose high, gasser- looking Chevy with a 265-ci engine and Muncie four-speed and drove it to and from school. The plan was to make it his shop truck when he graduated and opened his own business. To practice his newly learned skills, Dennis sanded down and painted the truck while still in school. After graduation, he tore the truck down to do an engine swap, but his new business took off quickly, and the project was relegated to a dark corner of the shop in 1976.

Sometime in the ’90s Dennis found the time to start work again on the old shop truck. He mounted a Camaro subframe and suspension to the front of the frame, while the Camaro’s TPI engine found a home under the hood. Once again, the demands of a successful auto body shop got in the way of personal projects, and the truck was again pushed into the corner. It sat long enough for Dennis to come up with a different vision for the truck, and he began the project anew for the third time. The Camaro subframe chassis and motor were sold, and an ’80s C4 Corvette was selected to donate its suspension, motor and transmission to a new chassis. But yet again, business took precedent and the project was pushed aside.

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After decades of the truck lurking in the back of his shop, Dennis reached the point where he had some time to work on his long- suffering project. Even then it took some prodding from friends and family to ﬁnally get things rolling. His wife Debbie gave him an LS2 crate motor for his birthday, with the caveat that it found a home under the hood of the Chevy. Not happy with the stock frame with the Corvette components grafted on, Dennis tapped Street Rod Chassis Builders in Oregon to build a chassis from the ground up to accommodate the sports car suspension front and rear and make a nice home for the LS2. A Tremec TK600 ﬁve-speed was ﬁtted to the ﬂywheel via a McLeod clutch to transmit the power back to the C4 Corvette rearend. The body was set on the frame for the ﬁrst time in years for mock-up only to reveal that the truck didn’t have the ride height that Dennis wanted. Wanting to keep airbags out of the build meant that Dennis set about raising the shock towers in the front and sending the rearend out to Roseville Rod to shorten the mounting ears so that the rearend could be mounted inside the frame rails instead of under it. The stock dog bones were replaced with a completely adjustable 4-link to secure the rearend. With the Corvette leaf spring eliminated, custom brackets were made for the coil-overs. All other unused stock rearend mounting points were cut off and ground smooth.

THE BED WAS RAISED ¾ INCH TO CLEAR THE REAREND AND THE SLATS WERE GIVEN SIX COATS OF EBONY STAIN, THEN SIX COATS OF VARATHANE FINISHING PRODUCT FOLLOWED BY SATIN AUTOMOTIVE CLEAR.

With the chassis ﬁnally sorted, Dennis turned his attention to the body. He wanted to keep all of the original sheet metal and maintain an easily recognizable ’55 Chevy look while improving on the factory metal work. The ﬁrst order of business was to weld up and ﬁll all of the factory spot welds and seams, giving a much smoother look. Starting at the front, the upper grille panel and latch panel were welded together into one piece. The stock ﬁrewall and inner fenders were retained, but their factory stampings were smoothed and all holes (Dennis counted 102 of them in all) were ﬁlled. All hoses and wires were routed under the cab. The cowl vent was smoothed out and ﬁlled as well. The stock hood hinges where re-riveted ﬂush and smoothed. The front bumper was ﬂipped to put the visual weight of the bumper down low. The ends were slightly reshaped and all of the mounting bolts were mounted ﬂush and smoothed. The upper corners of the doors at the cowl were rounded and one-piece windows were ﬁtted. The door handles where shaved, and the door gaps were made even by welding on a rod and grinding it down. Dennis also drilled out the door hinges, installed bronze oil-less bushings and made his own pins. The latches and strikers were reversed so that the solenoids could be placed in the cab frame, while the sill steps inside the cab were all molded. Finishing the metal work inside the cab, the dash was welded to the windshield posts and completely smoothed.

ALL CONTROLS AND SWITCHES WERE RELOCATED FROM THE DASH TO THIS HIDE-AWAY LEATHER WRAPPED COMPARTMENT IN THE CUSTOM CONSOLE.

Back outside the cab, the drip rails were pounded down, extended in the front and molded in with rod stock. The original bed sheet metal was retained, and all factory stampings were smoothed. The stake holes and bed rail ends were ﬁlled. Dennis sourced a second set of rear fenders and cut them 1.5 inches out from the bolting ﬂange and added that to the originals, widening them with only one weld. The steps were cut and wedged out using a second set of steps to ﬁll the gap. The factory embossing’s were then reshaped to match the widened fenders. The tailgate was completely molded with hidden latches installed. The factory logo stampings remain, although in heavily massaged form. The rear bumper was ﬂipped, the license plate dimple ﬁlled with a section of front bumper and all bolts were molded in and smoothed. The bumper’s upper lip was extended so that it tucks up against the body neatly. The outer edges were reshaped, but with the fenders extended, the stock width now ﬁts them nice and tight. Once all of the ﬂipping and ﬁlling was done, the stock taillights were relocated to ﬁnish off the look. Inside the bed, the ﬂoor was raised ¾ inch to clear the rearend, and then the oak boards received six coats of ebony stain followed by six coats of Varathane ﬁnishing product and a satin automotive clear.

DENNIS NEVER INTENDED HIS ’55 TO BE A SHOW TRUCK, BUT AS THE BUILD PROGRESSED, IT GOT NICER AND NICER. HAVING SHOWN IT, HE NOW INTENDS TO DRIVE IT.

A C4 CORVETTE REAREND WITH SHORTENED MOUNTING EARS AND CUSTOM BRACKETS FOR THE QA1 COIL-OVERS RESTS UNDERNEATH THE TRUCK BED.

After every surface inside the bare cab was covered in Dynamat, Dennis had Dave Putnam covered a pair of Glide Engineering seats, the custom console and rear enclosure with Italian leather. A Classic Instruments gauge panel was the only thing ﬁtted to the smoothed out dash; all other controls were mounted behind hide-away panels in the console. The battery, stereo amp and engine CPU were hidden in the rear enclosure. German weave carpet was sourced to give a reﬁned look to uncomplicated interior.

After the build was done, Dennis blew it all apart one last time to prep everything for paint and ﬁnishing. Dennis’ shop took in an Audi for some collision repair and he fell in love with the Alpaca Beige Metallic paint. He wanted a fairly subtle look for this truck, so all of the once-chrome pieces were painted and scuffed for a brushed look. Everything that could be unbolted from the chassis was glass beaded, painted, and then covered in ﬂat clear to make it stand out from the glossy body and frame. The engine and transmission received the same paint and ﬂat clear treatment. Stainless steel fasteners, which were used throughout the build, were ground smooth and brushed. The Sanderson headers were stripped and powder coated a contrasting gold/bronze. Mike Cline applied the only pinstriping and lettering on the truck to the carbon ﬁber engine cover using brown and beige paint in a style that mimics the original valve cover font.

AN 18-YEAR-OLD DENNIS SHANAHAN STARTS WORK ON HIS ’55 CHEVY IN 1975.

EVERYTHING THAT COULD BE UNBOLTED FROM THE FRAME WAS GLASS BEADED, PAINTED TO MATCH THE BODY, AND THEN GIVEN FLAT CLEARCOAT INSTEAD OF CHROME.

While the truck was originally intended as a shop truck, it just kept getting nicer and nicer as the build went on. Dennis remarked that after waiting so long to do it he wanted to do it right. With the project ﬁnally ﬁnished, Dennis took the truck to several shows, where it won just about every award it could. Now he intends to use it, although he admits it’s too nice to be his shop truck anymore.

TECH SPECS

OWNER

Dennis Shanahan
1955 Chevy Pickup
Sacramento, CA

ENGINE:

GM LS2 crate motor painted to match body with flat clear
Tremec TK600 five-speed transmission
McLeod clutch and hydraulic throw-out bearing
Ceramic-coated Sanderson headers
Muffler Tech through-frame exhaust
PRC radiator
Roseville Rod stainless radiator lines
Haywire wiring loom

SUSPENSION:

Street Rod Chassis Builders frame
Heidt’s C4 Corvette front suspension
Street Rod Chassis Builders 4-link rearend suspension
C4 Corvette rearend with custom brackets for coil-overs, custom sized by Roseville Rod
QA1 coil-overs
Baer 14-inch rotors
Baer six-piston monoblock calipers
Rock Valley gas tank
Mace Supply stainless fasteners
All fasteners ground smooth and scuffed
Frame smoothed and painted to match body
Suspension parts painted to match body with flat clear