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Picture 1 of 10

By Bruce W. Smith

It’s a beautiful spring morning as Robert “Bobby” Mulvihill Jr. rolls up to his shop in the New Jersey countryside, drops the air suspension so his truck is sitting bad low, and blips the throttle a couple times. The rumble from the 550-hp 502 Chevy Big Block is just as sweet as the classic ‘72 Chevy C-10 it powers.

What’s even sweeter a few steps away in a shop filled with cool rides is another classic truck Mulvihill takes out on sunny days: an identically painted, totally custom ’66 351 Pete powered by 851 cubes of “Big Cam” 400 Cummins.

The classic Pete, known as “Hillwick ’66,” isn’t nearly as fast as the short-bed Chevy, but it sounds every bit as nice to truckers who appreciate classic iron. The old Pete, far more customized than the C-10 Cheyenne, always draws a crowd at truck shows and turns heads when it rolls down the road.

Mulvihill owns a fleet of dump trucks and combos hauling stone, salt, sand and rock for Hillwick Inc. in Hackettstown, New Jersey. He says he’s owned “at least

20” custom bikes, street rods, classic cars and other vehicles over the years. “But ‘Hillwick ’66’ is special because it’s my trucking company showpiece.”

The old Pete was a far cry from a showpiece when Mulvihill drug it to Elizabeth Truck Center’s Staten Island, New York, customizing shop, Car Craft Truck Works, a couple years back. It was a dirty basketcase with a gutted cab perched on a barely rolling chassis weighted down by a silent, rusty Cummins.

Mulvihill’s input on the project amounted to specifying he wanted the finished truck to be painted to match his beloved C-10 and favor the street-rod/hot-rod motif. Other than that, Car Craft Truck Works was given pretty much free reign on the  restoration and design.

The Hilwick ’66  build, well documented on ETC’s website, required a complete disassembly followed by a laundry list of custom modifications and one-off custom parts built inside the Car Craft walls. “What separates ETC Custom from everybody else in the [truck customizing] industry,” says Anthony Pesce, manager of the Car Craft facility, “is every square inch of every project like Bobby’s Pete is designed, planned, fabricated, constructed, bent, twisted, welded, sanded, painted and polished all under one roof and all under one project supervisor who works closely with the truck owner.”

The result of such consolidated teamwork is a one-of-a-kind custom rig. From the body panels to the air-ride suspension, from the extended hood to the vintage interior, Hillwick ’66 is classic custom all the way.

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