It’s green. It’s clean. It’s a little mean. And, yes, James Bishop’s ’01 Silverado LS is one hell of a street machine. With understated looks and a lot of performance, James wanted his truck to provoke fits of jealousy without spending costly weeks at the body shop. A few simple mods (the ones that count) and a pinch of attitude make his ride drool-worthy indeed.
James’ Silverado is simple and it looks good that way. He painted the plastic pieces on the stock bumper to give himself more stuff to buff and to eliminate that ugly plastic look. The Stull billet grille looks subtle yet stylish. It’s really amazing to think that these two things are the only exterior modifications. But then again, having a super tricked-out suspension makes just about any truck look fully custom.
A set of 2-inch Belltech drop spindles and 3-inch springs get the front of James’ Silverado 5 inches closer to the ground. KYB shocks keep things riding smoothly, while a custom C-notch and a Western Chassis 6-inch flip kit with Bell-tech 1-inch shackles get the rear dragging 7 inches lower. Bigger rims make bigger burnouts. The 20-inch MOMO Vantage wheels up front look good, but the 22-inch MOMOs out back look even better. The Dunlop Sp9000 255/35R20 and 285/30R22s take the abuse and like it.
Although the rims are tasty, the best candy on the truck lies under the hood, attached to the 5.3L Vortec. A fat Whip-ple supercharger sends the squeal and gives the scream. Topped with an AIR-AID intake, James’ blown 5.3 has killed many a tranny in its day. The blower is cool, but what you can’t see can hurt you. James custom-fabricated a 100-shot nitrous system that he cleverly hid somewhere. We didn’t even know it was there, and he was extremely hesitant about telling us about it. We still don’t know how he did it, and he’s not tell-ing. The 3-inch Flowmaster single exhaust sounds good. James did put a dual setup onto his Silverado, but it made less power, so he switched back to the single pipe. A posi with a set of 4.11:1s lays the rubber in two perfect black stripes.
The interior is mild. Untouched. OK, fine — it’s stock. But James did take it to New Image in Fresno, Calif-ornia, to have the rear and side windows tinted. Besides, nobody cares what the interior looks like when they have to paw through a thick cloud of burnout smoke to get close to it.