Many of the trucks featured within the pages of your favorite magazine are discovered during the bright, sunny summer days, which the staff spends at truck shows across the nation. We purposely hop on airplanes bound for faraway destinations in search of the absolute best and coolest-looking trucks to photograph, in the hopes that these awesome rides will inspire you with their creative modifications, to go home and work on your truck. It's a fun job, to say the least. Most of the trucks we shoot are just that, show trucks. These are trucks that are ritualistically cleaned and detailed and then put on display for all to see, hopefully garnering some sort of award in the process. Some arrive by trailer and some don't. Some are driven every day, while others are never driven at all. The common thread, though, is that they are show trucks and not much more.
Chris McElmurry's '92 Chevy Silverado 4x4 is a show truck. Its body has been relieved of unnecessary items such as the tailgate handle and taillights, each hole covered with a perfectly sized piece of sheetmetal and expertly welded in place by the staff of Silver Star Customs. The accompanying bodywork was also sealed and sprayed with a show-worthy mix of House of Kolor hues. The show stature of Chris' truck is further enhanced with sizeable increase in ride height, courtesy of a 6-inch suspension lift and 3-inch body lift, a combination that allows his truck to tower over 38-inch-tall tires. Even more points are scored with the judges with a sano interior treatment that includes custom A-pillar covers that contain speaker pods and color-matched bezels that flow into an ocean of traditional tweed. Everything about Chris' truck screams show truck, from the monster Rockford Fosgate audio system, flush-mounted into the rear cab wall, to the Street Beat sliding ragtop that was cut into the roof. The difference between Chris and your average showgoer lies in his attitude about how to properly enjoy his show truck.
We found Chris and his Silverado deep in the heart of Mississippi, kickin' it with the guys from Silver Star, who coincidentally did a major portion of the work on his ride. Chris' truck was clean-really clean. In fact, it was so clean, polished, and perfectly detailed that we cringed at the thought of asking him to take his truck to a dirt lot nearby for a photo shoot. We figured a lifted truck belongs in the dirt, but not everyone who goes to the great lengths Chris has with a custom truck shares the same point of view. Boy, were we surprised when he hucked his Chevy off the dirt berm in the lot that day. It's one thing to jump a purpose-built off-road truck in the air because that's what it was constructed for, but Chris' truck has a lift kit. Make no mistake, his show truck was never meant to leave the ground, and the fact that it did, well, that impressed the hell out of us. And just so you know, none of the audio system fell apart during the repeated romps through a mud pit or off that little jump we found. Chris' Chevy survived the photo shoot, a downpour from Mother Nature, and lived to not only return to the show and compete for a trophy in its class, but also make the 200-mile road trip back home. Now that's one heck of a show truck!