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Toronto Star
02-08-2025
- Automotive
- Toronto Star
Trucks are a family affair and he's put a lot of work restoring the pickup he got from his uncle
Why I Love My Car is a series in Wheels that features people sharing their love for their vehicle. Owners reflect on how they came to own their car and tell us about the role it plays in their life and why they have such a strong connection to it. Trucks are part of Bob Mason's family legacy. Mason, who lives in Udora, his father, brother and uncles have all driven trucks for a living. More than two decades ago when Mason's uncle decided to part with his 1970 Chev C10 pickup, Mason bought the classic half-ton truck renowned for its stylish looks and build quality, part of GM's 'Action Line,' produced from 1967 to 1972.
Hamilton Spectator
02-08-2025
- Automotive
- Hamilton Spectator
Trucks are a family affair and he's put a lot of work restoring the pickup he got from his uncle
Why I Love My Car is a series in Wheels that features people sharing their love for their vehicle. Owners reflect on how they came to own their car and tell us about the role it plays in their life and why they have such a strong connection to it. Trucks are part of Bob Mason's family legacy. Mason, who lives in Udora, his father, brother and uncles have all driven trucks for a living. More than two decades ago when Mason's uncle decided to part with his 1970 Chev C10 pickup, Mason bought the classic half-ton truck renowned for its stylish looks and build quality, part of GM's 'Action Line,' produced from 1967 to 1972. 'I have always been into pickups. It was nice to get it from my uncle and keep it in the family. He needed to sell it to have money to finish an old classic Buick. We've always had trucks in my family. My brother always had stock cars and trucks. My first car was a 1969 Beaumont and I used to hang out with my friends and their cars at Bluffer's Park or the McDonald's parking lot near Warden and Sheppard in Scarborough. Over the years, I've had a ton of vehicles and was always working on something, including a 1981 Chevy pickup, and a 1977 Chevy van. I've had Dodge, Ford and Toyota pickups, but I liked the look of Chevy pickups and older Fords. My uncle bought the truck from a biker. My uncle owned it for about three years before I did. It was driveable and in pretty good condition, but I tore it down and did a full off-frame restoration. Everything on it has been rebuilt or replaced. It was a three-year restoration, when it was either at the body shop or in my brother's barn. First thing, I changed the motor. I put a 350 engine in it, then drove for it a year and decided to do the body. The body shop guy hurt his hand and that was part of the reason the restoration took so long. It has a different box from the original, and I sent it to get sandblasted, and I took off the cab and had it sandblasted. The hood is modified and not original, and the wheels are different — it had hub caps at one time. I lowered the suspension and put drop spindles and coil springs in the back, and lowered the seats. I like that lowered look. I changed its appearance one end to the other, but the interior looks pretty much the same. The chrome steering wheel tilts, and there is extensive chrome inside the cab and motor. I changed the whole dashboard. I can get any parts I want from a guy I deal with in Courtice. When I got the truck, it was candy apple red with a pearl white roof and white pearl inlay down the side, with a lot of gold leaf, that was an old style of pinstriping. I repainted it a similar colour to candy apple red, Inferno Red Crystal Pearl, a PT Cruiser colour. I drive a truck and haul gravel for a living and put in long days, so I don't do a lot of cruises, though there are ones I could go to every night of the week, if I wanted to. There are several of us that go together to car shows, and I'll go to four or five a year (most recently, Campbellford's Chrome on the Canal). I've taken the truck to the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit, and to the Syracuse show at the New York Fairgrounds, that gets more than 6,000 cars. On weekends, my wife Kelly and I'll drive it to Uxbridge, 18 kilometres away. Kelly enjoys coming to car shows, and it's a social event with our friends who also have old cars. The truck has no air-conditioning, but I enjoy driving it. It has an automatic transmission and although it didn't originally have power steering, it does now. The most common comment I hear is that someone in their family used to own a truck like this one. My uncle got to see the finished restoration and he approved. Campbellford is a biker town, and the guy who owned the truck before my uncle was a biker. A man who was a friend of that guy saw my truck at one of the Chrome on the Canal shows, recognized it and said his friend would have been proud of what I've done with it. In the 20-some years I've owned the truck, I've been the only person who's driven it. Kelly rides in it with me, and so has my daughter. Although my daughter has never driven it and isn't into cars, she's told me she wants it next.
BBC News
04-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
'Dying Matters' chats to be held in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
A series of events will be held to encourage people to talk about death, dying and Matters Awareness Week, from 5 to 11 May, aims to open up conversations around the oft-taboo events in locations around northern Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire will bring together staff from hospitals, hospices, charities, solicitors and the funeral Redhead, who chairs the Dying Matters group in North Lincolnshire, said: "Honest, timely discussions about death and dying are so important, as this can aid in ensuring the person's dying wishes are respected and carried out to meet their individual needs at the end of their life." People are being invited to meet the professionals for a chat at the following events:Tuesday, Grimsby hospital, main restaurant, 11:00 to13:30 Hull Royal Infirmary main foyer, 10:00 to 14:00. Wednesday, Living Later Life Well project, Trinity Methodist Church, Barton-upon-Humber, 10:30 to 12:00. Wednesday, Health Bus, Brigg Garden Centre, 09:00 to 15:00. Wednesday, Queens Centre, Castle Hill Hospital, Cottingham, 10:00 to 14:00. Thursday, Brigg Market, 08:30 to 14:00. Friday 9 May, Scunthorpe Market, 09:00 to 15:00. Friday 16 May, Freeman Street Market, Grimsby, 09:00 to 15: Wray, a matron for end-of-life care at Hull's hospitals NHS trust, said: "By opening up honest, compassionate conversations and respecting cultural differences, we can all play a part in ensuring dying well is something everyone has the chance to do – with dignity, comfort, and choice."Information about organisations that offer support with bereavement and end-of-life care can be found on the BBC's Action Line page. Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
BBC News
14-03-2025
- BBC News
Cleddau Bridge crash: Man deliberately drove into coach
A man died after deliberately driving head-on into a coach on the other side of the road, an inquest has Chapman, 32, died of multiple injuries at the scene of the collision close to the Cleddau Bridge in Pembrokeshire on 5 September drove his Mitsubishi Outlander into the opposite lane of the A477 and into the path of the oncoming coach carrying holidaymakers from senior coroner Paul Bennett told the inquest in Haverfordwest that Mr Chapman had "a probable intent to end his life by placing his vehicle into the path of the oncoming bus" and concluded he died as a result of suicide. The driver of the Titterington Holidays coach was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition while a number of its 41 passengers were from Dunstable, Mr Chapman had been living in Pembrokeshire with his fiancée Catrin Jones, known as Katie, said Mr Chapman was loved by everybody who met him and had "a smile that lit up every room he walked into". She described their relationship as a "fairy tale" but said they had a number of disagreements in the weeks leading up to the incident and had been due to attend a counselling session the day after the fatal called 111 the day before the incident to ask for mental health advice after Mr Chapman suffered a "panic attack", the inquest heard."He did attempt to leave the house in the car, but I physically stopped him because he was so upset," she said. Matters were "better" on the day of the crash but Ms Jones said Mr Chapman was upset with her for not taking the day off work to talk through what had Jones said she realised after coming off a work call that Mr Chapman had left their home in the car."I didn't think he was suicidal, but I knew he wasn't in a good state of mind", she inquest heard the road surface was dry and visibility was clear at the time and the crash was described as sounding like an "explosion" by a Police forensic collision investigator David Stacey said the car was travelling at a speed of about 40-45mph (65-72km/h) and there was no evidence of braking or deviation prior to you have been affected by this report you can access help or support on the BBC Action Line
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Why Did Chevy Trucks Have Square Wheel Wells?
Way back in 1973, General Motors introduced the third generation of its popular C/K-line pickup trucks. Badged as both Chevrolet and GMC, they were a more than fitting replacement for the short-lived, second-generation "Action Line" trucks built between 1967 and 1972. They combined increases in comfort and utility with handsome, muscular, broad-shouldered styling to create what would become an icon of late-20th century automotive design. These new "square body" pickups, as they'd come to be called, made up the backbone of GM's light and medium-duty truck lineup for 14 years and underpinned everything from half-ton pickups to Blazers and Suburbans to dump trucks. Square bodies were phased out over the course of a few years at the end of the '80s and were replaced by the General's fourth-gen GMT 400 trucks. While the GMT 400 was a pretty big step up in quality, comfort, and styling, it carried over one of its predecessors more controversial styling cues — square wheel wells. In fact, GM put square wheel wells on its trucks for nearly 50 years, from the introduction of the square body in 1973 until the launch of the fourth-gen Silverado in 2019. So, why square — or, well, rectangular with round corners — wheel wells? Truck nerds have been arguing about that for longer than I've been alive, and I'm a bicentennial baby. Go to any online forum, pick 'n pull, or Elks bingo night and ask the first two gray-bearded, square-body partisans you find about their opinion on GM's wheel wells, and you'll get three different opinions. There is an actual, factual reason though, and despite what your uncle thinks, there's a pretty simple explanation for it. Read more: Apparently It's Illegal To Put A 'For Sale' Sign In Your Truck Now Throughout the postwar era, most of GM's trucks featured round wheel wells just like Ford, Dodge, and Studebaker trucks did. While there were some outliers here and there in the lineup — early-60s first-generation C-series trucks had square-ish wheel wells — GMC and Chevy wheel wells were as round as the tires within them from the time GM restarted civilian production until the birth of the square body. As stated above, it all changed in 1973 with the introduction of the third-gen C/K-series. Why, though? Why did GM put square wheel wells on its new truck and stoke more than half a century of boring-yet-strangely-heated arguments? The answer is surprisingly simple — aerodynamics. See, the square body was apparently the first GM truck to undergo wind tunnel testing during its development. Yeah, yeah, "hurf-blurf squares aren't aerodynamic". Listen, GM tested square bodies in the wind tunnel in the early '70s, did a bunch of fancy math, and figured out that the square wheel wells were sufficiently aerodynamic. So much so, in fact, that GM kept the wheel wells square for almost half a century. That's dedication to the bit right there. GM abandoned rectangles and brought the new Silverado to market in 2019 with their first round wheel wells since Nixon was in office. Why the change? Again, aerodynamics. Five decades worth of research, improved technical and scientific understanding, and even fancier maths showed that the new Silverado's round wheel wells were aerodynamically superior to those of its predecessors. That's the way it goes with science -- things are true until they're proven untrue by someone smarter and better equipped than you. It's how we learn, and it's how we make our trucks better (and solve long-running arguments). Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
