Holley 1967 Chevy C10 Restomod - Jay Leno's Garage

The author takes for a spin the 1970 Holly Performance truck, a Chevrolet C/K Series pickup that has been modified with a 6.1 liter LS motor swap. The author is impressed with the truck's features, including its air conditioning, which was not standard in most 1967 Chevrolet trucks.

The author notes that the truck's original color scheme appears to be a modern interpretation of the classic 1967 colors, but GM did indeed offer this exact shade back in the 1950s. The author is also struck by how well the truck handles, with its tubular control arms and lowered spindles providing a smooth ride.

The Holly Performance team has done an impressive job with their swap parts business, making it easy for owners to install LS motors into older vehicles like this one. However, the author notes that some attention must be paid to maintaining the period feel of these classic trucks. For example, adding modern accessories such as 22-inch wheel rims or tilt-away steering wheels can disrupt the authentic experience.

One feature that the author appreciates is the truck's low profile and lack of ground clearance. This makes it easy to drive in a variety of conditions, without worrying about scraping or hitting bumps. The author also notes that some people have an emotional attachment to certain numerical combinations when it comes to engine displacement - 396, 427, 429, 383, and 327 are all notable examples.

The Holly Performance team has done an excellent job with the truck's suspension, using a stock frame and c-notching it in the rear to provide sufficient clearance for modern tires. The author is impressed by how well the truck handles on a windy road, and decides to take it up the freeway for a spin. At 78 miles per hour and 2200 rpm, the truck is performing admirably.

As the drive comes to an end, the author takes one last look at the truck's performance capabilities. They invite the Holly Performance team to bring the truck back to Bowling Green, Kentucky, where it will be put through its paces by the company's CEO. The author notes that they were surprised to learn that a corporate executive might participate in a burnout, but is eager to see how their own attempt compares.

With the drive complete, the author reflects on the Holly Performance truck as a testament to the power of modification and creativity. Whether it's swapping out an engine or simply maintaining the period feel of a classic vehicle, there's something special about these modified trucks that sets them apart from more modern vehicles.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to another episode of jay leno's garage have a look grimier than usual because i broke down on my 1915 franklin coming here and i had to go underneath it and fix the fuel line oh sure i could have changed and put on different clothes but i don't care see that's different between this and real tv i don't really care what i have on because it's not about what i have on it's about cars and something we haven't done enough of on this website trucks especially really cool trucks this is a 1967 chevy c10 if you're a truck person you may notice some interesting resto mod things about it we'll get into that in a minute but the really cool part is the name on the door holley speed shop holley carburetors of course legendary been in business for something like 111 years the original supplier to the ford model t that was a harley carburetor and all the way up through the 50s and 60s and of course now fuel injection performance systems as well and this is there i for lack of a better word demonstration truck i guess this is the one they take to the shows and uh it's really really unique i think you'll enjoy it let me bring in the president and ceo of uh holly holley performance parts is that it holley performance products performance products all right tom good to see you good to see you and you that's the way your ceo is that's right very good nice to see you and i know you're a real car guy you're at all the car shows and you really get involved with the products and i think that's what makes holly so successful so tell us what we have here as i said 67 chevy c10 that's right it's our shop truck right and we built this to really act as a rolling showcase for our products you mentioned that we started out in carburetors today we have fuel injection systems this truck retains kind of the vintage vibe but it's all got a modern drive train a t-56 six-speed transmission uh an ls3 uh motor like you would see in a corvette and fuel injection now you're still making carburetors absolutely because i just put a carburetor a holley on a 58 corvette that we're doing for a friend of mine and it works fantastically well in fact i was one of those people on fuel ejection that's a complicated let me just give me a nice four barrel carburetor i can change the jets and do what i have to do they're simple and inexpensive yeah is there still a big demand for carburetors they really are yeah yeah a lot of old cars i guess carburetors official went out about what 88 roughly in that time frame yeah and that was is there any place in the world that's still building cars with carburetors china or somewhere like that or not not that i know of yeah okay looks can be deceiving this is uh it looks lower correct yes okay it looks slower and i like those wheels they look like hollow brands but i suspect they're not they are actually copies of vintage halibrand indie roadster wheels like you would see on an indy car from the 50s and what your size 16 they're they're 19s in the front 90s in the background okay they are i didn't know if i was an illusion with the tire these trucks have really big wheel openings so they need big wheels and tires to fill them out one of the things we did is left on a lot of the details of the old truck the fuel tank for safety reasons has been relocated to the back what it's not under the seat it's not under the seat anymore but we left the filler there so the truck would have that look right okay it's a small window truck we left the vintage style mirror on the truck and then like you mentioned the trim even to the point where the grilles are still the white painted grilles instead of the chrome let's take a look white painted grills instead of chrome okay oh yeah i see what you mean plus a lot of people don't realize these trucks were actually compared even commander modern car very light weren't they they were yes i mean there's no big steel door guard there's no air bag no no i mean the door itself is like this thick yeah so i imagine this is what about thirty four hundred pounds stock something you know we haven't waited but it's it's probably in that range plus now it's got the aluminum motor and transfer right okay well well you mentioned the motor let's take a look can you open the hood for it absolutely all right all right looks can be deceiving on first glance i would guess a 396 or 427 big block but it's actually a small block isn't it what you've just got it's it's actually an ls3 corvette motor with a big valve cover and we this is a product that we make and so it's a coil cover that covers the coil packs but it has that style yeah it looks like a big block yeah yeah it's kind of like putting a rolled up sock in your pants when you go out now that looks like a uh one of the corvette that's exactly what it is is that a corvette snorkel okay air cleaner we wanted to keep that vintage look we wanted to show people that you could have modern reliability with that vintage look and so that was what we were going for so this is a holley fuel injection unit it is it is it runs our hp ecu and it's a self-learned system so you just put it on and you drive it and as you drive it it tunes itself it tunes itself itself modern technology now see if a salesman told you that yeah the tune itself you punch the guy in the face but for some reason i believe it really does so you don't have to it it tunes itself itself and you have the ability to go in and and tune it if you're technical and you like that kind of thing all right well very nicely done and look how clean it is under the hood here let's go around there we go it closes like a truck and the knockoffs are actual knockoffs uh they are actual knockoffs and one of the things about the original halibrands is that they were six pin wheels right and and we wanted this was a six lug truck and we wanted to keep that look and so so they're pinned yeah yeah all right now maybe it's an illusion to me it looks like the bed is not as deep the bed has been raised we wanted the truck to sit nice and what we found is we didn't have a whole lot of suspension travel initially and the choices were to put a bump over the pumpkin in the middle which kind of makes the bed ugly so instead of doing that we just raise the entire bed so you know what do we have here that is actually for the fuel filler for the fuel tank that's been relocated to the back and you just kind of push on it and turn it pops up and then you unscrew it to put the fuel in oh very good how many gallon tank you got in there about a 20 gallon tank oh nice nicely done and a chrome bumper who doesn't love a nice big chrome it's amazing how simple these trucks were very simple you know in fact it only has one sun visor the second sun visor was an option oh yeah we didn't want to spring for that right yeah let's see let's let's let's go into the interior of the car uh as i said look how thin this door panel is it's all metal yeah that's right it's got the rubber floor mat oh right rubber floor mat and a proper gear shift we wanted to keep it very original looking yeah original stereo original steering column thank you for not putting a tilt away column you know i know a lot of guys do this if you're offended i'm sorry but i hate seeing vintage cars with the gm tilt away steering column it just ruins the whole look of the vehicle for me if you're so fat you have to move the steering wheel out of the way lose some weight that's what i say and look at that gear shift it doesn't get more agricultural than that is that a hurst shifter that is actually a hearse shifter on a tremec t-56 six-speed transmission and you've nicely integrated the uh these are the vents from vintage vintage air i know they look great how many horsepower is this thing it's putting down about 500 horsepower to the rear wheels okay so you can run it on pump gas and i like the way you did the lettering in the old school i mean i don't know if that was the original old style holly logo but it certainly looks like it is the banner in the center is the old school holly logo and then we kind of did a fusion uh bringing in the speed and the power because originally holly was an oem carburetor supplier and we've involved into a performance and race car part supplier but it was amazing even back in 67 they knew that when websites were invented theirs would be www.holly.com i mean the fact that they knew that then well very nicely done let's uh can we take it for a ride absolutely let's do it let's take it for a ride okay we want to get the whole little block that thinks it's a big block experience so notice you have a key there's no fob you actually put this in like that put that in and then when you turn that i see why you don't need the radio listen to that and of course look at this massive gear gearshift lever fantastic but you know actually this throw is quite nice and it falls readily to hand as they say in the european magazine you're not doing this down here come on let's take them for ride it is going to be a lot of fun well the best thing about this truck is you've got air conditioning in it which nobody had in 67 that's right in fact we were kids uh we would take my dad's car which didn't have air conditioning and we go drive around we button our shirts up and put our sleeves down the rolls the windows up so girls would think we had air conditioning and we go you guys want to go for a ride you had so hot and they get in the back hey there's no way there's no air in here oh we never said there was there what are you talking about now if memory serves me correctly this is an original color isn't it it looks like a modern interpretation but they did have this color in 67 this is actually the original color of the truck okay because i remember gm had this color back in the 50s it's really something feels very firm nicely planted tell me about the suspension it's basically got tubular control arms in the front and it's been lowered it has lowered lowering spindles and then in the back it's got the the truck arm suspension basically like what nascar has used for years okay it's got coilovers in the back less motor a big part of our business has been making swap parts that make it easy to put ls motors in these old vehicles right oil pans motor mounts transmission cross members stuff like that yeah there are subtle things that ruin retro mods for me when i see a body that's all stock but it's got like 22 inch dub wheels on it yeah and that does it when i see the tilt away steering wheel when i see the little wheel and then that doesn't work because half the fun of these things is the period feel of it yeah that's right you know there's certain things i miss in older vehicles i know you need the big thick a-pillar for safety but on modern vehicles i'm always going like this looking around the airport this is nice and reasonably thin so i can see if there's a kid on a bicycle exactly you know something nice about having a vehicle where you don't have to worry about ground clearance right you know when you drive a lot of the modern cars especially the european stuff you're always scraping or you hit a bump ah you bought them out right now well you're not going to bottom out this thing that's right you know it's funny how 376 cubes there's certain numerical combinations that just mean a lot to guys of a certain age 396 427 429 383 327. 376 i go what's that yeah or when you do the leader thing yeah right here there you go 6.1 liter oh and what did you say how's that in the real world yeah what's that in kentucky okay oh okay right yeah yeah yeah now you utilize the stock frame of the vehicle it is the stock okay it's c-notched in the rear okay to get enough suspension drive right right boy it doesn't rattle or bang or cowl shake or right any of that let's take it on a windy road and see how it goes let's do it this thing handles pretty good for a truck not bad let's take it up the freeway and we'll cruise a little bit and who knows maybe we'll do a burnout late you want to do the burnout absolutely let's do it let's see if it'll do a i don't know if it'll do a burnout it's kind of fun to take out a corvette down a windy road with a 67 right wow i mean it's 78 miles an hour returning 2200 rpm so you must get pretty good mileage yeah it does it gets great go by the highway patrol in this truck and they don't look like right even though you have sort of minimal sound proofing it's still pretty quiet yeah these are pretty rough roads and it's yeah oh these are terrible roads california's the worst well we're heading back to the shop now i saw tom kind of grimace at my burnout so we'll see if he can do any better well i thank tom for bringing the holly performance truck by you know he's got to take this thing back to bowling green kentucky so he's got a little bit of a drive i thought my burnout was pretty good i find it hard to believe that the ceo of a major corporation would do a burnout but okay i was wrong uhwelcome to another episode of jay leno's garage have a look grimier than usual because i broke down on my 1915 franklin coming here and i had to go underneath it and fix the fuel line oh sure i could have changed and put on different clothes but i don't care see that's different between this and real tv i don't really care what i have on because it's not about what i have on it's about cars and something we haven't done enough of on this website trucks especially really cool trucks this is a 1967 chevy c10 if you're a truck person you may notice some interesting resto mod things about it we'll get into that in a minute but the really cool part is the name on the door holley speed shop holley carburetors of course legendary been in business for something like 111 years the original supplier to the ford model t that was a harley carburetor and all the way up through the 50s and 60s and of course now fuel injection performance systems as well and this is there i for lack of a better word demonstration truck i guess this is the one they take to the shows and uh it's really really unique i think you'll enjoy it let me bring in the president and ceo of uh holly holley performance parts is that it holley performance products performance products all right tom good to see you good to see you and you that's the way your ceo is that's right very good nice to see you and i know you're a real car guy you're at all the car shows and you really get involved with the products and i think that's what makes holly so successful so tell us what we have here as i said 67 chevy c10 that's right it's our shop truck right and we built this to really act as a rolling showcase for our products you mentioned that we started out in carburetors today we have fuel injection systems this truck retains kind of the vintage vibe but it's all got a modern drive train a t-56 six-speed transmission uh an ls3 uh motor like you would see in a corvette and fuel injection now you're still making carburetors absolutely because i just put a carburetor a holley on a 58 corvette that we're doing for a friend of mine and it works fantastically well in fact i was one of those people on fuel ejection that's a complicated let me just give me a nice four barrel carburetor i can change the jets and do what i have to do they're simple and inexpensive yeah is there still a big demand for carburetors they really are yeah yeah a lot of old cars i guess carburetors official went out about what 88 roughly in that time frame yeah and that was is there any place in the world that's still building cars with carburetors china or somewhere like that or not not that i know of yeah okay looks can be deceiving this is uh it looks lower correct yes okay it looks slower and i like those wheels they look like hollow brands but i suspect they're not they are actually copies of vintage halibrand indie roadster wheels like you would see on an indy car from the 50s and what your size 16 they're they're 19s in the front 90s in the background okay they are i didn't know if i was an illusion with the tire these trucks have really big wheel openings so they need big wheels and tires to fill them out one of the things we did is left on a lot of the details of the old truck the fuel tank for safety reasons has been relocated to the back what it's not under the seat it's not under the seat anymore but we left the filler there so the truck would have that look right okay it's a small window truck we left the vintage style mirror on the truck and then like you mentioned the trim even to the point where the grilles are still the white painted grilles instead of the chrome let's take a look white painted grills instead of chrome okay oh yeah i see what you mean plus a lot of people don't realize these trucks were actually compared even commander modern car very light weren't they they were yes i mean there's no big steel door guard there's no air bag no no i mean the door itself is like this thick yeah so i imagine this is what about thirty four hundred pounds stock something you know we haven't waited but it's it's probably in that range plus now it's got the aluminum motor and transfer right okay well well you mentioned the motor let's take a look can you open the hood for it absolutely all right all right looks can be deceiving on first glance i would guess a 396 or 427 big block but it's actually a small block isn't it what you've just got it's it's actually an ls3 corvette motor with a big valve cover and we this is a product that we make and so it's a coil cover that covers the coil packs but it has that style yeah it looks like a big block yeah yeah it's kind of like putting a rolled up sock in your pants when you go out now that looks like a uh one of the corvette that's exactly what it is is that a corvette snorkel okay air cleaner we wanted to keep that vintage look we wanted to show people that you could have modern reliability with that vintage look and so that was what we were going for so this is a holley fuel injection unit it is it is it runs our hp ecu and it's a self-learned system so you just put it on and you drive it and as you drive it it tunes itself it tunes itself itself modern technology now see if a salesman told you that yeah the tune itself you punch the guy in the face but for some reason i believe it really does so you don't have to it it tunes itself itself and you have the ability to go in and and tune it if you're technical and you like that kind of thing all right well very nicely done and look how clean it is under the hood here let's go around there we go it closes like a truck and the knockoffs are actual knockoffs uh they are actual knockoffs and one of the things about the original halibrands is that they were six pin wheels right and and we wanted this was a six lug truck and we wanted to keep that look and so so they're pinned yeah yeah all right now maybe it's an illusion to me it looks like the bed is not as deep the bed has been raised we wanted the truck to sit nice and what we found is we didn't have a whole lot of suspension travel initially and the choices were to put a bump over the pumpkin in the middle which kind of makes the bed ugly so instead of doing that we just raise the entire bed so you know what do we have here that is actually for the fuel filler for the fuel tank that's been relocated to the back and you just kind of push on it and turn it pops up and then you unscrew it to put the fuel in oh very good how many gallon tank you got in there about a 20 gallon tank oh nice nicely done and a chrome bumper who doesn't love a nice big chrome it's amazing how simple these trucks were very simple you know in fact it only has one sun visor the second sun visor was an option oh yeah we didn't want to spring for that right yeah let's see let's let's let's go into the interior of the car uh as i said look how thin this door panel is it's all metal yeah that's right it's got the rubber floor mat oh right rubber floor mat and a proper gear shift we wanted to keep it very original looking yeah original stereo original steering column thank you for not putting a tilt away column you know i know a lot of guys do this if you're offended i'm sorry but i hate seeing vintage cars with the gm tilt away steering column it just ruins the whole look of the vehicle for me if you're so fat you have to move the steering wheel out of the way lose some weight that's what i say and look at that gear shift it doesn't get more agricultural than that is that a hurst shifter that is actually a hearse shifter on a tremec t-56 six-speed transmission and you've nicely integrated the uh these are the vents from vintage vintage air i know they look great how many horsepower is this thing it's putting down about 500 horsepower to the rear wheels okay so you can run it on pump gas and i like the way you did the lettering in the old school i mean i don't know if that was the original old style holly logo but it certainly looks like it is the banner in the center is the old school holly logo and then we kind of did a fusion uh bringing in the speed and the power because originally holly was an oem carburetor supplier and we've involved into a performance and race car part supplier but it was amazing even back in 67 they knew that when websites were invented theirs would be www.holly.com i mean the fact that they knew that then well very nicely done let's uh can we take it for a ride absolutely let's do it let's take it for a ride okay we want to get the whole little block that thinks it's a big block experience so notice you have a key there's no fob you actually put this in like that put that in and then when you turn that i see why you don't need the radio listen to that and of course look at this massive gear gearshift lever fantastic but you know actually this throw is quite nice and it falls readily to hand as they say in the european magazine you're not doing this down here come on let's take them for ride it is going to be a lot of fun well the best thing about this truck is you've got air conditioning in it which nobody had in 67 that's right in fact we were kids uh we would take my dad's car which didn't have air conditioning and we go drive around we button our shirts up and put our sleeves down the rolls the windows up so girls would think we had air conditioning and we go you guys want to go for a ride you had so hot and they get in the back hey there's no way there's no air in here oh we never said there was there what are you talking about now if memory serves me correctly this is an original color isn't it it looks like a modern interpretation but they did have this color in 67 this is actually the original color of the truck okay because i remember gm had this color back in the 50s it's really something feels very firm nicely planted tell me about the suspension it's basically got tubular control arms in the front and it's been lowered it has lowered lowering spindles and then in the back it's got the the truck arm suspension basically like what nascar has used for years okay it's got coilovers in the back less motor a big part of our business has been making swap parts that make it easy to put ls motors in these old vehicles right oil pans motor mounts transmission cross members stuff like that yeah there are subtle things that ruin retro mods for me when i see a body that's all stock but it's got like 22 inch dub wheels on it yeah and that does it when i see the tilt away steering wheel when i see the little wheel and then that doesn't work because half the fun of these things is the period feel of it yeah that's right you know there's certain things i miss in older vehicles i know you need the big thick a-pillar for safety but on modern vehicles i'm always going like this looking around the airport this is nice and reasonably thin so i can see if there's a kid on a bicycle exactly you know something nice about having a vehicle where you don't have to worry about ground clearance right you know when you drive a lot of the modern cars especially the european stuff you're always scraping or you hit a bump ah you bought them out right now well you're not going to bottom out this thing that's right you know it's funny how 376 cubes there's certain numerical combinations that just mean a lot to guys of a certain age 396 427 429 383 327. 376 i go what's that yeah or when you do the leader thing yeah right here there you go 6.1 liter oh and what did you say how's that in the real world yeah what's that in kentucky okay oh okay right yeah yeah yeah now you utilize the stock frame of the vehicle it is the stock okay it's c-notched in the rear okay to get enough suspension drive right right boy it doesn't rattle or bang or cowl shake or right any of that let's take it on a windy road and see how it goes let's do it this thing handles pretty good for a truck not bad let's take it up the freeway and we'll cruise a little bit and who knows maybe we'll do a burnout late you want to do the burnout absolutely let's do it let's see if it'll do a i don't know if it'll do a burnout it's kind of fun to take out a corvette down a windy road with a 67 right wow i mean it's 78 miles an hour returning 2200 rpm so you must get pretty good mileage yeah it does it gets great go by the highway patrol in this truck and they don't look like right even though you have sort of minimal sound proofing it's still pretty quiet yeah these are pretty rough roads and it's yeah oh these are terrible roads california's the worst well we're heading back to the shop now i saw tom kind of grimace at my burnout so we'll see if he can do any better well i thank tom for bringing the holly performance truck by you know he's got to take this thing back to bowling green kentucky so he's got a little bit of a drive i thought my burnout was pretty good i find it hard to believe that the ceo of a major corporation would do a burnout but okay i was wrong uh\n"