Spotted at the Holley NHRA Hot Rod Reunion: Jim Evans' '49 Chevy Pickup

By: Todd Veney08/20/2017 < Back to Blog Home

Longtime hot-rodder Jim Evans outdid himself with this classic truck, a '49 Chevy that was once a mining truck in Arizona. Evans, from the Chicago suburb of Hammond, Ind., just across the Illinois/Indiana line, has put a little over 40,000 miles on the truck since he rebuilt it.

Spotted at the Holley Hot Rod Reunion on his first trip there, it has a 350 cubic-inch small-block Chevy for power, a 5-speed transmission, and a rear end out of a '57 Ford. With largely original paint, a natural patina, and Southwest Carburetor & Ignition emblazoned on its flanks, the low-slung truck looks just like it might have in 1949.

What differentiates it from so many other trucks from that period are its exterior visor and especially its one-of-a-kind interior. Evans got his hands on a dash-mount prism straight out of the 1940s that makes it possible to see stop lights that otherwise would be hidden behind the visor, and the polka-dot upholstery came out of, of all places, a torn-down McDonald's not far from his Chicagoland home.