Jerrad "Peebody" Keeling, a member of the Utah chapter of Severed Ties, is the kind of guy who wanted his truck to tuck big wheels and throw sparks. Unfortunately it took a thief to push Peebody's hand with this S-10. What started as a low-mileage Extreme has been transformed into what Peebody calls "Blackjack Plus One" as an homage to his 22-inch wheels. Peebody is a pretty outgoing, guy so we sat down and asked him the standard set of gearhead questions to get a feel on how his truck came to be.
The first thing we wanted to know was how did he get into the custom truck scene. Peebody stated, "I've always had a thing for custom trucks but back in the summer of '99 is when it really started. I bought a Nissan Hardbody that was on the April '97 cover of Mini Truckin' magazine."
Getting your start with a cover truck? Talk about jumping in with both feet! So besides the high-profile Hardbody we wondered what else has he had built. An '83 Ranger, a '90 Caddy, and a '93 Caprice were parked in his garage before he picked up this S-10 from an old man in town. Peebody loves the challenge of staying on top of the game. Something about tucking big wheels and throwing sparks just gets him all fired up, and this was going to be the truck to do it in.
To kick off the build, Peebody started with the suspension because he wanted to continue to drive the truck during the build. After a thief pinched his 20s the truck really went under the knife. It was then he decided that nothing was going to hold him back. The back-story on the wheels is the shop that was doing some work on the truck was broken into and his 20s were stolen. That was all the motivation Peebody needed to up the ante and go with a set of 22s, but he wanted to keep all the good stuff like the heater, A/C, and cruise control. Laying out on that big of a wheel is no easy task when you factor in keeping the A/C. Not only did he get the wheels to fit while keeping the creature comforts, he also did it without tubbing the firewall. Peebody says they had to slide the cab back 3/4 inch to do it. "We supported the frame on jackstands and then used square tubing to support the cab while we cut off all the body mounts from the frame. Then we just slid the cab back and re-welded the mounts. The bed is slid back as well, but all we had to do was oblong the holes for that."
It sounds like he had a good time putting this truck together, and we wanted to know what was the best part. He responded with, "Rollin' the truck out of the booth and seeing the candy pop in the sun for the first time. Seeing the truck laid out over the 22s for the first time wasn't bad either."
With the good times always comes some bad times, and Peebody hit his bad time when he went to reinstall his interior and realized he was missing a ton of hardware. Just like good and bad times there are always things you wish you had done differently and Peebody's different plans would have been to stuff an LT1 under the hood and use a four-door cab.
There were a few people who helped with this build, but there were two entities that motivated him to build a high-profile truck. The first was his father who was building a '66 Impala at the same time he was working on the truck. They would call each other every week to check progress. Peebody says, "In a way, it was a competition to see who could get theirs done first."
The second motivator was the Severed Ties club. "I look up to Severed Ties for setting high standards. Motivating me to build an elite-class truck. Also that ST showed me that it's not about just a car club, but it's about being a family."
As you can tell, Peebody has a pretty good grasp of the custom-truck scene and knows that with big wheels comes big respect. His S-10 is a prime example of what happens when a minitrucker's no-fear attitude meets a street-rodder's need for everything to look good and work.