By Fuelish Media – Images by the Author
Let’s go on a little time-traveling experiment. It’s 1981 and you’re in nearby Fairbanks, Alaska, about six hours north of Anchorage. You’re a young woman whose father runs a gold mine nearby and things are going well. High school was good, you have a Squarebody Blazer to run back and forth to class, and you’ve met a man who, while you don’t know it yet, is going to be the one you’ll marry.
That Blazer? It’s not exactly what you want, and you’re 18 now. You can just trade it in if you like, so that’s what you do. At the end of the day, you drive home with a 1981 GMC Sierra Grande K15, and when you show your dad, he’s not too happy about it, thus starting a 30-year journey with a truck.
Well, this happens to be Lori Clowers’ story. Her husband, Dean, knew her in high school and they eventually got together in 1987, and even then she still had that truck. She wasn’t driving it as much at that point; her father ended up using it to haul parts for the gold mine. That is until 1991 when the head gasket on the six-cylinder motor popped and it was parked in her parents’ backyard. Life moved on for Lori and Dean. They eventually bought a vacation home in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, but for the most part they’ve spent their days in Alaska, and that truck has sat in the same spot, just waiting for the day when it would be reborn.
Meanwhile, Dean was building cars and trucks. When you live in Alaska, everything has to get shipped up your way, and nothing comes fast. Lori would often complain about “the dreaded boxes” showing up on their doorstep, while Dean would run out excited to see what the UPS guy had brought. He built a lot of things over the years, including MGs, Trans Ams, Corvettes, and even a 1968 C10.
That last one is key because it also launched Dean into a relationship with Premier Street Rod. They’re located in Lake Havasu City, the same place where Lori and Dean had that vacation home. So, after Dean did his best with the ’68, he decided to go the extra mile and take it to them. The end result was a full feature in this very magazine, and he was very happy with the experience.
Somewhere around this point Dean started thinking about that ’81. He had watched over the years as trees grew around it, creating a wooden prison for the square. The truck collected a bullet hole in the fender at some point, and the window rubber had degraded enough to let in some water in one of the doors, but otherwise it wasn’t in bad shape. Could Dean rebuild it for Lori, or maybe send it down south to Premier for a complete refresh?
That became the plan: Premier would handle the build, but Dean just had to get it to them. That required getting out a chainsaw to free it from a Birch prison, changing out the battery, and putting in some fresh fuel. Believe it or not, it ran—not well, but it did start and move enough to get onto a trailer. That was all Dean needed, so with all that handled, the truck went down to Premier for them to work their magic.
The ’81 shockingly didn’t have a lot of rust. The undercarriage had been through various Alaskan creeks from 1981-1991 so the running gear was rough, but other than that leaky window seal, everything was in pretty good shape. As such, they didn’t have to go nuts redoing a lot of metalwork. Instead, they focused on a full frame-up restoration; while it took a year to complete, the results speak for themselves.
Let’s start with the engine. That tired six-cylinder was tossed and replaced with an LS3 with a few mods like a GM Connect to Cruise ECU, Holley manifold and fuel pump, and a 3-inch exhaust with Borla mufflers. The result is 430 horses give or take, which is just fine with Lori.
Suspension on a 4×4 is always important, and in this case the idea was to keep it mostly stock with some Fox shocks to supplement the ride. All the running gear was replaced since it wasn’t in the best condition. The wheels and tires are also deliciously period correct, with 15×10 Rallys mated to 33×10.50R15LT BFGoodrich all-terrain tires.
Then there’s the exterior, which is a stock color, just not for this truck. The paint is GM Sacre Blu (Paint Code 935981 if you’re curious), which is normally found on 2015 GMC pickups. Then Premier put everything back together and installed LED headlights and taillights to complete the bulk of the mods. Everything has just been cleaned up and kept original.
As for the interior, they may spend most of their time in Alaska, but now they have a home just outside of Phoenix. They need A/C, so they went with a Vintage Air climate-control system in the truck. The gauges are all-new Dakota Digital RTX models, and everything’s been reupholstered in leather. Again, just clean, simple, and (mostly) original.
While you might hope that this was all done as a surprise for Lori, there’s no easy way to explain why the truck that’s been sitting in her parents’ backyard for 30 years is suddenly gone, so she’s been in on this from the start. She’s ecstatic with the results as her and Dean have taken the truck out to a few Arizona shows along the way. It’s been a great experience for them both.
Now imagine what it would be like if we did have a time machine. We took it back to just north of Fairbanks, Alaska, right around 1981 at a GMC dealership. Think a young Lori would believe us if we told her she’d have that truck over 40 years later? Probably not. Then again, who knows? Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
Check out this story in our digital edition here.
