“When I was 13 or 14 years old, my grandfather taught me and a few of my cousins how to drive his 1951 Chevrolet pickup truck,” said Mike Soong, who drove that old three speed along the back roads of
“When I was 13 or 14 years old, my grandfather taught me and a few of my cousins how to drive his 1951 Chevrolet pickup truck,” said Mike Soong, who drove that old three speed along the back roads of the Big Island and quickly fell in love with Chevy trucks. “It was like kinda like my first love you know?” Soong continued.
As the years rolled by, the siren’s song of the Motor World played in Michael Soong’s heart and eventually he decided to buy himself an old ‘50s truck. The problem was however, that there simply weren’t many of them left to buy in Hawai‘i. So he began searching for one on the Mainland.
Knowing of Soong’s desire to find a ‘50s Chevy pickup, one of his old law partners living in Tucson, Ariz., called him up to say he passed an old 1958 Chevrolet Apache pickup truck on the side of the road with a for sale sign taped to the window.
The ‘58 long bed looked like a real bargain complete with an air conditioner installed, and, here was the best part, it was a truck driven in the dry Arizona air so there was very little rust.
Soong turned to his wife and said, “Hey Liana, you want to take a vacation trip to San Francisco and then drive on to Tucson?” Soong’s wife excitedly replied, “Su-u-u-ure! …Wait! …why are we going?” Soong looked up from the phone and answered with a beaming Cheshire grin, “I bought a truck.”
So, the happy couple took their first vacation together and traveled to Tucson to check out the bodacious little Apache. One look at the little Chevy pickup and ba-da-boom, Soong cut the check and shipped it back home to Kaua‘i. Fortunately for Soong the Apache’s motor had already been rebuilt so there was little left for him to do but make some minor body repairs.
“I decided to take the car back to its original color, so I began looking through some old brochures to find a two-tone color scheme that I liked,” said Soong. Wendell Gabriel helped Soong by patching up any visible rust spots and prepped it for the paint job.
Richie Rapozo from Wailua Homesteads was given the task of matching the original “Omaha Orange” color from the brochure and successfully retro-restored it to its 50-year-old classic style.
Soong also compliments Jeff Vegas and his girlfriend for their part in helping with the paint restoration. Sharkey, at Aloha Canvas reupholstered the bone white seat covers giving it that custom truck look and feel.
“It’s the most dependable, best-running truck I’ve ever owned and I love it because it’s fun to drive. As a matter of fact, I drive it to work all the time even through the steering is a little stiff,” said Soong. The hardest part of driving this classic for Soong is making the fit in his parking stall. “It’s a major workout on the arms working it into that narrow parking space,” said Soong.
The other fact about the Chevy Apache is that it was made tough for farm work and not made to be a highway cruiser.
In fact, when one of Soong’s friends mentioned that he just bought a junior dragster for his son to race at the Mana race track, Soong asked him how fast the little dragster could go. The friend replied that it could get up to 85 miles an hour in the quarter mile and Soong told him, “Gee, my ’58 Chevy Apache can only go 60 miles per hour before it begins to shake, rattle and roll.”
Judging from the high cost of gas prices today, combined with the probability that the highway speed limit will be notched down a bit, that’s probably a good thing.
Watch video
footage online
of this classic 1958 Chevy Apache in action as part of The Garden Island’s recurring series on Kaua‘i’s Classic Car Club and check back each week for a new classic.
• Leo DuBois, contributor, can be reached via news editor Nathan Eagle at 245-3681 (ext. 227) or via e-mail at neagle@kauaipubco.com.
