Like most of you reading this magazine, Jesse Coburn has a long and sordid history when it comes to his love affair with the automobile. “Growing up, as a kid I was always around cars with my dad,” the Basehor, Kansas resident reflected. “As long as I can remember, my dad Randy was always tinkering with his 1969 Mustang,” he added. Along the way, Randy managed to pass the gene down to the son, with the pair hot rodding everything from lawn mowers to daily drivers and everything in between.
When it came time to start driving, Randy bought Jesse a well-travelled 1984 C-10 shortbed for $500 to serve as his first truck. With a kajillion miles and a now-trendy blue patina’d paintjob, it was a project to say the least. True to form, the duo added headers and a trick high-flow induction system (read: they flipped the factory air cleaner lid upside down) and proceeded to crack off a quarter-mile ET in a range that roughly equaled Jesse’s age. Sadly, an enexpected mishap avoiding a deer resulted in a total loss for the first ol’ squarebody.
Undeterred, Jesse found yet another ’84 just days later and purchased it right away for $400. “The ‘new’ truck was in really bad shape— both bed sides were caved in, the roof was smashed in from kids jumping on it—it needed a ton of work,” he said. Tasks included updated, replacement, or new panels pirated from whatever was useable from the totaled C-10 and elsewhere before laying down a black paintjob. “We actually painted the truck in a shop that had a wooden floor and wood everything else. We decided on black and that’s what it has been ever since,” he added.
With the truck finally together in time for Jesse’s senior year of high school, things were trending in the right direction, with a best of 13.62 @ 98 mph. But it still wasn’t nearly fast enough for either Coburn…. Read more of this article. Just click on the digital feature below this introduction.
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