OL' RED

53 Years of Cohen and Perry Family Cruising

- TRAVIS NOACK

OLD TRUCKS. Their thick-gauge steel bodies built this country much like the stained-overall clad men and women who once sat behind their oversized steering wheels. The trucks of yesterday with their solid steel sheet metal, metal dashes, crank windows and manual steering were built for one thing: work. On farms and in driveways across America, there was a time when everyone simply had to have a pickup truck. From daily drivers to weekend workhorses and family cruisers, trucks have always been the universal tool to get the job done and, like an old worn-out catcher’s mitt or a grungy old baseball cap, it’s a perfect fit every time you slide behind that wheel.

As time rolls on, many of these old workhorses get retired from service and put out to pasture or sold off into the abyss of an unpredictable future. Once in a great while, tales of trucks that have remained in the custody of their original owners since the day they were born surface and deserve to be shared with truck fanatics far and wide.

Rewind the clock to September of 1967. Nick and Sally Cohen of Irving, Texas, were in the market for a pickup truck. GM had just introduced the then-new version of the popular C10 body style, which had slightly more rounded features over the previous ’60-’66 model. Nick liked the looks and style of the new truck. The couple strolled onto the lot at Vandergriff Chevrolet in Irving and were immediately smitten by a ’67 Chevy C10 big window long bed pickup blanketed in Ditzler factory code 44 red and fit with a 327 under the hood, an automatic on the column and the ultra-rare and coveted “buddy bucket” seat option inside the cab. A deal was struck, and so began the Cohen family story of Ol’ Red.