COLLECTOR CLASSICS
Vintage truck with boat to match
Steve Leslie doesn’t drive his customized classic GMC pickup truck to many car shows.
But when he does, he and his truck get mobbed. But all the attention goes to what’s out back. His pickup tows a beautiful 1942 Chris-Craft mahogany Runabout meticulously restored over a three-year period by the Burnaby firefighter.
Leslie’s love affair with old vehicles dates back to 1976 when, at 15, he was a car-crazy high schooler in Coquitlam. He found a rusted-out 1953 GMC five-window pickup and bought it for $50. His best friend’s father towed it home for him and Leslie tore it apart — right down to the frame.
He hooked up a 283-cubic-inch Chevy engine to the original transmission and got the truck back on the road by age 16 when he earned a driver’s licence. He drove it to high school for two years before he parked it.
Career, marriage and three children became the primary focus and the old truck was towed from house to house as the Leslie family grew.
Life had stabilized for Leslie by 1999 and he decided a makeover for his old truck was in order. He chose to make a full custom out of it, starting with the frame, suspension and running gear.
His truck now features Mustang II power rack steering and four-wheel power disc brakes. Motivation is provided by a modern 350-cubic-inch Chevy V8 engine mated to a Tremec fivespeed floor-shifted transmission.
Creature comforts include a full leather interior, air conditioning, power windows and digital gauges.
The truck was a big hit at car shows and earned significant recognition, including the Home Built Award at the Goodguys show in Spokane, Wash.
With the completion of his truck and building a new home in Mission behind him, Leslie was anxious to take on another project.
“I have always admired wooden boats,” he says. “My wife Louise learned to water ski behind one in Ontario and she appreciates them as well, so I began obsessing about them.”
The search was on for a suitable restoration candidate. Leslie misfired on his first target, which was a vintage mahogany 16-foot Century Resorter: “I drove fiveand-a-half hours each way to Spokane only to find the boat was in such rough shape that I had to walk away.”
But he liked what he heard from a Vancouver, Wash., owner advertising a 17-foot 1942 ChrisCraft runabout on Craigslist. The boat had originally been deliv- ered to Staff Jennings Marina across the Columbia River in Portland on Oct. 22, 1941.
It had all its original equipment, including the optional 95-horsepower Hercules sixcylinder motor it was delivered with. The owner’s restoration had stalled and he was a motivated seller.
“It was basically a crab trap, but it had great potential,” Leslie says looking back on his purchase. “I knew nothing about restoring wooden boats, but I have done carpentry and I knew I could learn.”
Wooden boat restoration forums on the Internet proved to be his biggest resource, with tips including making a steamer from an old household water heater to shape and bend the mahogany planking.
The boat’s serial number led to the acquisition of the original hull card from the Mariner’s Museum in Virginia, which maintains the Chris-Craft archives. His boat was number 129 of the 241 seventeen-foot runabouts built by Chris Craft in 1942 before domestic production ceased to make way for the war effort.
Leslie obtained 16 pages listing all factory specifications for his boat, right down to the original screw sizes. A total of 3,500 screws and fasteners hold the mahogany runabout together.
There was also some good luck involved in the restoration. An ad on the local Craigslist offered 29 Philippine mahogany boards from the pews of an old funeral home for $250. They were a bargain and just what Leslie needed for the complete rebuild of his Chris-Craft runabout.
An amazing find in a local fabric store was a bargain box filled with eight hides of leather for $25 each, in the exact deep red colour needed for the seat upholstery in the boat. Leslie did all the restoration work himself with help on the leather upholstery from wife Louise.
“Lulu-Belle” is spelled out in gold leaf lettering on the stern recognizing the nickname Louise’s father gave her as a child.
Like Leslie’s pickup truck, his Chris-Craft runabout is overrestored. For instance, there are 14 coats of varnish meticulously applied to the hull and decks. The factory gave their boats three.
“They weren’t craftsmen who built these boats,” Leslie explains. “They were high school students and out-of-work farmers in northern Michigan. They were put together quickly and cheaply.”
Forever restless, Leslie has developed a case of “foot-itis.” He has turned his sights to finding a longer vintage mahogany runabout to restore.
“The 17-footer is good for two of us but there isn’t enough space for passengers,” he says, admitting, “Restoration is an obsession.”