Tribal 1937 Chevrolet Pickup Truck Can Poke Your Eyes Out With Its Huge Beer Lever

If you've been watching us on Saturday you might have gotten an idea that we've decided to focus this weekend on custom pickup trucks wearing not-that-common colors over their bodies. Yesterday, for instance, we discussed the Hot-n-Pink, a 1934 Dodge truck made to look like some kind of Barbie ride.

For this Sunday we dug up something seemingly even more exciting, an orange apparition dating back to the same decade. It's a build that blends the old-school way of making vehicles, using steel all around, with a few modern touches that should land it quite the selling price when it goes under the hammer at the end of the month.

Chevrolet seems to have always been in the business of making pickup trucks. The present-day lineup is extraordinary to say the least, with important names for the industry like the Colorado and the Silverado constantly making the headlines.

Moving back in time we stumble upon models that, even if no longer in production, are still around today, as restorations or custom projects, almost always going for the big bucks and the wow effect. I mean, who doesn't like the half-ton Advance Design, Task Force, or the omnipresent C/K trucks?

Long before those famous trucks came along, in the years predating the Second World War, Chevy was making its first series of trucks, the Master. Granted, it was an umbrella name for passenger vehicles as well, which shared the same appearance. But it's the truck part of the family that's of interest to us today. Because, obviously, the orange custom we have here is rooted in that.

This particular machine was originally assembled in 1937, about mid-way through the Master family's life. We have no information about how it spent its days, but we do know it made it here, 86 years into the future, looking better than it ever did.

The truck is customized, and that's clear as soon as one sets eyes on it. It still boasts the pre-war lines that made its family famous back in the day, all of them made even more obvious by the bright orange paintwork, beautified here and there by tribal accents you can barely see.

The paint is pulled over an all-steel body, manifesting itself in the form of well-proportioned hood, cabin, doors, and bed panels. The fenders that shine over the cream wheels, with their polished centers and stripe tires, seem to have been massaged a bit into looking slightly smoother than they used to.

The front is where all the magic happens. The left and right fenders become beautiful shoulders to support a face with a long grille nose and two, tired-looking headlight eyes to either side. Further down, above the front bumper (made in chrome, just like the rear one), a triangular bar with no apparent useful purpose is flanked by a couple of amber fog lights.

The bed at the back is as classic as they come, with sheets of wood separated into equal strips by shiny metal inserts. The interior, on the other hand, is anything but classic, at least when it comes to materials and hardware used.

The straight, full orange dashboard features smack down its middle white-back gauges, while below them an AM/FM/CD audio system sits, sending sound to custom speakers installed in the doors.

The seats, door panels and even the low center console are wrapped in tan leather, which I have to admit works perfectly with the orange spread everywhere else.

None of the above is what catches the eye, however (and you can take that expression literally). In the center of the cabin, rising from the floor all the way up to eye level is a huge custom lever. For good measure, as if the builders wanted to make sure you poke yourself in the eye with this thing, the lever was topped with a custom knob that references the Shock Top Belgian White wheat beer.

The lever is there to control the manual transmission of the truck, which in turn is tied to a fuel-injected V8 engine 350ci in displacement and capable of developing 370 horsepower.

The truck is presently listed as one of the entries in the auction Mecum is hosting at the end of the month in Dallas, Texas. We have no estimate on how much the seller hopes to fetch for it, but we can get a good idea of that by looking back to 2019.

Then, the truck attempted to sell at the hands of the same Mecum, but failed to do so despite a highest bid of $50,000. We will of course keep an eye out (not literally, hopefully) to see how it performs this time, and we'll update as soon as we know more.