THE SILVERADO60
Bill Holt’s Not-so-flow ’87 Squarebody
INSPIRED BY THE NUMERICAL portion of a friend’s GT40 (40-inch roof height), Bill Holt’s Silveradobadged C10 drives much faster and sits quite a bit lower than stock Chevy, which is how the Silverado60 name comes into play, as its roof, you guessed it, measures 60 inches in height. Not everybody knows by that Bill unofficially refers to his truck with this nickname, but the moniker does have a catchy ring to it. A lot of work and passion went into transforming this truck, which was pretty much bone stock with 113,000 miles on the odometer when Bill got it, but this is just the type of thing he lives for.
Bill was raised on racing. Ever since he bought an ’85 C10 brand new in 1985, there has only been an accumulative two-year period since then when he didn’t have at least one Squarebody parked in his driveway (he currently has two of them). It really wasn’t until he called it quits on dirt and drag racing that he started dabbling with muscled-up trucks. In fact, he’s created a business around building high-performance vehicles for others to enjoy. It really has turned into a lifestyle for Bill filled with family, friends and cruising the country in cool rides—does it get any better than that?
After attending more truck shows, especially those with autocross courses, Bill started to
With his truck in tip-top condition, all he’s worrying about now is working hard in the shop so he can get out on the road and enjoy his downtime in the driver seat. While there are some improvements he’d like to make to it eventually, his C10 has taken him to a new place in his personal life and career that he absolutely loves.
recognize the strategy involved in mastering the course—it was something much di erent and more exciting than any other type of racing he’d done before.
“The 40-50 seconds of making your way through a good course was way more intense than the 5-6 seconds of any quarter-mile race I have ever experienced,” he admits. “I was instantly hooked after my first experience of whipping through the autocross course at the 2018 C10 Nationals.” (Sidenote: Bill ended up winning that event.)
While at the driving events, Bill began reconnecting with a regular circle of friends he had made, with one being
Rob Macgregor of No Limit Engineering. Once Rob found out that Bill had recently purchased an ’86 C10 and was wanting to build it to autocross, he offered to provide Bill with a prototype chassis to serve as the nucleus for the project. Granted, there would be some kinks to work out since this was still an R&D opportunity, but it wasn’t anything Bill couldn’t handle.
“The buildup went relatively smoothly, with the exception of some floor and front fender modifications,” Bill says. “But I was willing to help figure these out so other Squarebody owners looking to order a chassis from No Limit for their own projects could install one without issue.”
With the cab and bed perfectly mated with the No Limit chassis, Bill began the process of starting the portion of the build that really is an enjoyable skill that he has got down to a science now—the healthy injection of LS power.
“The installation and tuning of these engines for C10 trucks is always a good time,” Bill says. “We can set them up for anyone no matter what their driving habits are—from everyday grandma-type cruising to full on race spec. There’s just so many ways to go with them.”
For the purpose of his own build, Bill set his sights on tweaking his LS3 to shoot
550hp to the wheels, which he actually exceeded, but the 590hp wasn’t too drivable, so he dialed it back down to about 545hp or so.
“The long-term goal is to try to get this truck to hit 200mph in the standing mile, but for that we’d need something in the way of a twin turbo that puts out 1,1000hp or so,” he says. “For now, the LS is doing us just fine.”
With the C10 dialed in to its peak performance, the job of getting the truck to look just as good was about to begin. Seth Waltz of Full Service Collision was asked to make some