Perhaps some enthusiasts were not aware of the uprising of classic trucks from the 1970s and the 1980s, but the 2021 SEMA show has left them without an excuse, with a brutish Tesla-dual-motor-swapped Square Body Chevy C10 getting a full ton of attention (pun intended). But what if an enthusiast looking for such a third-gen truck still wants the pedal on the right to be loud? We’ve brought along a virtual build revolving around a Square Body C10 that definitely ticks that box.
Nowadays, vehicles with an 18-year life cycle are impos… wait, the Dodge line-up proves that statement wrong, so we’ll start over—it’s extremely rare for a generation of machines to stay on the market for 18 years these days, but this is precisely how much time the third iteration of Chevrolet C/K trucks, which debuted in 1972 for the 1973 model year, spent on the market.
Of course, you can’t hold the fort for that long without serious revisions. Speaking of which, this particular example seems to sport the mid-cycle revision introduced in 1981, hence the model year listed in the title.
With more and more builders targeting these bed bearers, slammed projects, such as the SEMA star mentioned above, have become just as popular as lifted builds (how about a Rolls-Royce belonging to the latter category?). Well, it looks like the one parked on our screens right now aims to tick both boxes!
In the words of Dom Host (aka Altered Intent), the digital artist who brought the contraption to the virtual world, this is a Baja/pre-runner truck in slammed form.
And, if you happen to be confused by the duality, we have some details that won’t exactly help, such as the BF Goodrich offroad rubber wrapped around the deep dish, multi-piece wheels that reside in the monstrous overfenders of the machine. This brings us to the nickname we selected for the monster.
Why is this Chevy truck generation called a Square Body?
While GM introduced the Gen 3 trucks as the Rounded-Line, thanks to aero optimizations made to improve fuel efficiency, the boxy overall appearance determined the public to affectionately label this as the Square Body.
Sure, the creator of this truck uses the E.V.I.L. label in the Instagram post below, but, in the title, we went for a description that would allow anybody to instantly identify this wide-bodied C10. And what a widebody this is! Together, the front fenders now take up as much real estate as the hood, while they pack gaping vents facing the rear of the vehicle.
The rear overfenders aren’t any shier, albeit completely exposing those meaty tires. However, one’s attention might not stay on the aggressive thread for too long, with a carbon fiber finish for what’s left of the tailgate and a generously-sized diffuser making sure of that.
The bed welcomes even more carbon fiber, but if we had to choose our favorite piece from this part of the truck, it would have to be the exhaust, which dwarfs the bed bar in a way that lets everybody know there’s a potent internal combustion engine in this project.
The said Insta post also sees the artist, who chops real cars in his garage when he’s not rendering stuff, mentioning the possibility of a transition from pixels to metals, or what we here at Carvibz call the RPM (real project in the making) Potential—in our book, this truck grabs an 8/10.
And if this pixel customization style seems familiar, it might be because Dom also used it on the 1970s Ford F100 we discussed yesterday.
