Restoring a ’41 Chevy
Good things take time. In 1973, Bill Kwas was just 23 years old when he bought himself a project truck.
In 2011, he and his son Scott finally completed the restoration. Here’s their story. Kwas graduated from SAIT’s Aircraft Maintenance Technology program in 1971, and he’d worked and saved enough to buy this 1941 Chevrolet Model 1314 half-ton truck, which was advertised for sale in the Calgary Herald’s classifieds.
“It was complete, but it needed some bodywork because it was slightly dented and there was some rust in it, as well,” Kwas says.
With a little bit of work, Kwas got the truck to run with its original 216 cubic-inch in-line six-cylinder engine. But, he never drove it.
Instead, family and life took over his time, and money was also at a premium. Unable to afford any restoration, but reluc- tant to sell, Kwas stored the truck, outside, on a friend’s farm.
“It was just out in the field, and the cows had rubbed up against it and dented it even more,” Kwas explains.
Son Scott, now 33, and the official owner of the truck, never stopped pestering his Dad to get working on the truck, but that didn’t happen until 2000. That’s when Kwas took a job up north, which gave him the funds but no time.
So he delivered the truck to Airdrie’s now defunct Hotrods and Cool Cars, where the truck was dismantled in preparation for complete restoration.
The company performed all of the sheet metal work, refinished the chassis and restored the brakes and suspension, and installed a larger 235 cubic-inch GM engine, mating it with the truck’s original floor-shift four-speed gearbox. The body was also painted a dark blue, and the fenders and running boards black.
In 2005, they got the truck back to their own Airdrie garage, but it wasn’t until 2010 that father and son finally got around to final assembly.
“We did mostly the small stuff, and by 2011 we had the truck back on the road,” Kwas says.
For now, Bill, Scott and Scott’s son, Kaleb, 4, have been enjoying touring their restored ’41 Chev- rolet around to car shows and participating in parades.
“The truck’s been around for a pretty big part of my life, and it now belongs to Scott,” Kwas says. “Hopefully, one day it will be passed on to Kaleb.”