Van Halen Hauler sightings
A couple weeks back, I happened to notice a cover inset photo of an early ‘90s Chevy pickup on a custom truck magazine. Normally, I don’t even flip through those books—slammed trucks on mammoth wheels just aren’t my thing. But in this case, I recognized the Chevy pickup as an old project vehicle for the now-defunct Sport Truck magazine, which had a celebrity tie-in to one of my favorite guitar heroes, Eddie Van Halen.
I remembered that project, mostly because I’d long been a fan of Eddie and the band, but also because I thought it was cool that this particular Chevy was getting hot rod-style upgrades, including a Gen II LT1, which at the time was a relatively new development at General Motors. The Corvette engine would also be joined by a Corvette independent rear suspension under the shortbed’s box, along with some other period custom touches, all done by Boyd Coddington while he was riding his initial wave of fame as a hot rod builder.
According to the recent story, there were actually two trucks—one for Eddie and an identical truck for a giveaway contest. Apparently, the primary truck really was being built for Eddie, rather than as some momentary PR opportunity. In fact, the recent magazine story claimed that the truck had been sitting in the rock star’s driveway for a number of years without being touched, where it deteriorated steadily.
I’m not sure what prompted the renewal of the VH Chevy truck, but not long ago it was hauled off to American Hot Rods in Anaheim, California, run by Duane Meyer, who was Boyd Coddington’s shop manager on the TV reality show. There it received a proper refurbishment, with new paint replicating the original scheme, which had been designed by Chip Foose back when he was serving as Boyd’s whiz kid. Boyd’s had also created a set of billet wheels for the truck with a one-off pattern that emulated Eddie’s trademark guitar striping. At the time, the 16- and 17-inch wheels were state of the art, and Boyd was then on the leading edge of custom wheel design. For the revival, Boyd’s son Chris, who also makes his career in the aftermarket wheel business, custom-made a new set of similar wheels with 18- and 20-inch hoops, machining them to accept the original Boyd’s center caps. The finished truck was photographed with Eddie and big plans were made to sell it off at Barrett-Jackson.
After reading all about Eddie’s truck, I couldn’t help wondering what happened to the giveaway version. I can’t verify this, but I think that the LT1 engine swap was actually done by GM techs out at the Arizona proving grounds, which is where a lot of the GM custom show cars (not to be confused with concept cars) were built then. Swapping EFI engines was not common then the way it is today, so this was impressive, and the factory involvement made it appealing to me. Even if you didn’t care about Van Halen, this would still be a really cool shop truck.
So a week or so later we’re in Scottsdale to cover the auctions, and what should I see in the restaurant parking lot as I emerged from breakfast one morning but a Van Halen-style Chevy truck. This one wore Arkansas plates and didn’t look quite fresh. The wheels were the correct Eddie-stripe design, but in the smaller diameters of the original project–recall that these were never offered in the Boyd’s catalog. Was this actually the other VH truck? A quick glance underneath confirmed: a complete C4 Corvette IRS. All of the other paint details seemed to jibe as well.
Was the owner in town to pick up his truck’s celebrity twin? No clue—we never got to chat. If he was, he might have been the one to score the Eddie truck for $39,000 (before auction fees)—a relative bargain for a freshly refurbished truck with a trick drivetrain (and probably few miles), a new custom paint job, a brand-new high-buck sound system and the provenance of being designed by a young Chip Foose (the original artwork was included as well), built by a now-departed hot rod guru, Boyd Coddington, and owned by rock god, Eddie Van Halen. It even came with one of Eddie’s new Fender guitars. We recall this thing being billed as the Van Halen Hauler back in ’93, or perhaps the Van Hauler, but today it’s being referred to as the Boyd’s Hauler, perhaps in homage to its creator. Time will tell if it was actually a score.
