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BY JERED KORFHAGE JERED.KORFHAGE@FOURWHEELER.COM PHOTOS: FOUR WHEELER ARCHIVES

BILL HETRICH’S FRAME-CHOPPED AND BODY-SWAPPED ’39 CHEV Y

Bill Hetrich’s ’39 Chevy-bodied ’75 Blazer caught our attention one night as we leafed through the Four Wheeler archives. There’s far more to it than the old-iron body and Gumbo Monster Mudders. Bill used three different trucks and the bartering system to build the Corvette-Yellow machine seen here. Take a look back with us to the June 1990 issue of Four Wheeler and how Bill’s truck came to be.

The process began with a ’75 Blazer which Bill and his brother stripped down to its frame. The duo took six inches out of the frame, filled in its imperfections, and painted it all, before shifting their attention to the body. According to Bill, attaching the ’39 Chevy body to its new frame “wasn’t easy, but wasn’t that hard,” and required some custom work on the body and bed mounts. Between the hand-forged hood ornament; the custom-built running boards and firewall; the hardwood-hewn tailgate; and the steel tube frame, fenders, and bumpers, over 700 man-hours of work were poured into sculpting the ’39’s curves. Where’s the fiberglass, you ask? There isn’t any. All the work was steel, and it was coated in ’72 Corvette Yellow and treated to custom pinstripes.

Some might argue that the ’39 Chevy was one of the most aesthetically pleasing trucks to ever be offered by the Bow Tie. In its day, the truck came with a 216ci inline-six, and Bill wanted nothing to do with those dismal displacement figures. Instead, the general contractor opted to trade the construction of a new garage for a built-to-the-hilt smallblock Chevy mill. The engine was bored 0.060-inch over, landing its displacement on 327 cubes while TRW 10:1 pistons and a 0.447-inch-lift, 306-degree-duration Dynamic cam helped boost power. A trio of 400-cfm Rochester dual-throat carburetors fed fuel to the factory GM manifold and Hedman headers dumped spent gases into a set of 2.5-inch exhaust pipes. Bill’s power figures were 375 hp and 380 lb-ft of torque, and it all flowed into the TH350 and NP203 combo, before hitting the axles.

Up front, Bill’s Dana 44 came packed with 3.08 gears and held a pair of 15x10 Continentals and 44x18.5-15 Gumbo Monster Mudders. It took a set of leaf springs and a pair of Rancho RS5000 shocks to handle suspension in the front while three Moog steering dampers kept shimmies at bay. Out back, the Chevy 12-bolt was located by heavy-duty leaf springs, axlewrap was limited by 1-inch square steel traction bars, and four Rancho RS5000s smoothed out the bumps. Bill would calmly reassure anyone that the 327 had plenty of power to turn the 44-inch mudders, especially since the whole truck weighed in at only 3,500 pounds. Inside went red velour front seats and door panels with red carpet to match. The tilt steering column came from a ’69 Monte Carlo and it was topped with a wheel from Cal Custom. You’d also find gauges from Classic Instruments to monitor the truck’s vitals, a cassette deck for audio entertainment, and a fuse box stationed beneath the front seat.

Do you have a classic 4x4 project in the garage? If so, head out and snap some pictures and send them our way via email to editor@fourwheeler.com along with a description of where you want the project to go or where it stands now. FW

FOUR WHEELER (ISSN 0015-9123) March 2022; Vol. 59, No. 3. Copyright © 2022 by Motor Trend Group, LLC. All rights reserved. Published monthly by Motor Trend Group, LLC, 831 South Douglas Street, El Segundo, CA 90245. Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, CA, and at additional mailing offices. Single copy price is $6.99. SUBSCRIPTIONS: U.S. APO, FPO and U.S. Possessions $19.97 for 12 isssues. Canada orders add $12.00 per year and international orders add $24.00 per year (for surface mail postage). Payment in advance, U.S. funds only. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: Send address corrections to FOUR WHEELER, P.O. Box 37198, Boone, IA 50037.