Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Chevy pickup is the epitome of a sleeper, looking stealthily innocuous on the outside, while hiding a big block secret underneath. Together, it looks totally awesome, but will its price cause you to hit the snooze button?
Seriously? A two-grand car with working A/C and new tires and you couldn’t give it a pass because it was a freaking Celebrity? That’s right, yesterday’s 1985 Eurosport - which was also a custom convertible, I might add - crashed and burned in a 56% Crack Pipe loss owing mostly to its crap-rep provenance. TMZ will be all a twitter - as will Twitter - over this Celebrity’s downfall.
“To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there’s the rub.” Man, that Shakespeare really had a way with writing words. The British scribe also knew what was up when it comes to being a sleeper, and today’s 1980 Chevy C-10 would do the Bard proud.
A Sleeper, as defined by the OED is: (a) someone who is asleep, (b) a place or piece of furniture that can be used for sleeping, (c) a seemingly mundane vehicle that looks stock from the outside, but packs a wicked-hard punch under the hood. I believe that last definition was also written by Shakespeare.
This Chevy could serve as the poster child for that last description - that is if dictionary entries actually have children or posters. Externally - what with its low-level trim and dog dish hubcaps wrapped in whitewall tires - it’s all budget contractor or old school urban cowboy. Zzzz, amiright?
Pop the hood however and things will definitely wake you up before you go-go. There you’ll find 572-freaking-cubes of Chevy V8, which is sort of like coming home and finding King Kong banging your significant other, but in a good way. That ZZ572/650 is touted by the Bowtie Boys as their most powerful crate mill, and presently comes with an MSRP of more than seventeen grand.
If cubic inches aren’t enough, the truck also has been plumbed with a ZEX nitrous system to enable all your Mad Maxican tire squealing fantasies. A TH400 with transbrake sends the power back to the - lightly loaded it must be pointed out - Moser 3.73 Posi rear end. The truck also rocks disc brakes back there. The whole ball of wax has but 34,000 miles, and the updates, of course, have lots less.
A massive mill needs a lot of gas and keeping that safe is a 15-gallon fuel cell which should be good for what, about 90, maybe 120 miles per fill-up? That’s an important determination as apparently the truck’s fuel gauge doesn’t presently work.
Seemingly everything else does, and while the vinyl bench inside is cracked on top like an angel food cake, it does rock the same sort of ‘70s plaid pattern as did the Chevette we had earlier this week. The floor in there is carpet-free for those of you sufferers of Chaliophobia, and the console shifter looks denuded - like a Terminator’s nasty-ass junk.
Making up for that are a set of huge drag slicks mounted on proper Centerlines and a fiberglass cowl induction hood that just needs a coat of paint to look really killer. Me, I’d stick with the present setup and troll under the radar.
To do so I’d need to come up with $14,900. That ain’t gonna’ happen, but then no one’s quite as parsimonious as I am. Perhaps it might be you? What’s your take on this sleeper for $14,900? Is that a deal good enough to put to bed? Or, is that a price that you’d have to sleep on?
You decide!
Oklahoma City Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Toast54 for the hookup!
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