1932 Chev on the road
1932 Chev on the move for the first time since the early 1970’s.
Big Shed Customs Roadster wins Work In Progress trophy at the 2013 Nelson Car Show
Big Shed Customs 2013 Roadster
Muscle Car Madness 2013
Big Shed Customs at Muscle Car Madness on Saturday 26 January 2013 in their 2013 Cab Over. Thanks to Mark Beckett for the photo.
Gill Construction 1937 Chev Truck was the standout at the 2012 Blenheim Truck Show.
Gill Constructions 37 Chev truck was fully restored at Big Shed Customs.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/news/7751266/Moonshine-truck-out-on-display
Custom Cabover Featured in NZ Hot Rod Magazine
Our Custom Cabover features in the 8th edition of NZ Hot Rod Magazine‘s ‘Beach Hop Pictorial’.
Here’s the article:
By Craig Stare
SOMETIMES it doesn’t take much to plant the seed for inspiration for the next project, and this is a story of just that. I have known Mark Stead for about three years now and always enjoy calling into his shop Big Shed Customs whenever I get to go through Blenheim.
Inspiration came from an original COE Mark saw in the USA in 2009 and he did open his trap and say “I could build one of those but my way.” The cabover has a loose resemblance to a Ford but when asked by curious onlookers what did it used to be? They all get the same reply – “just a half pallet of panel steel.” Starting with a Hilux chassis he installed an injected 302 Ford engine with a 4-speed Falcon auto and rear end. Mark created all the bodywork himself from a vision inside his head, including extensive metalwork inside the cab as well. The truck was painted in-house in Perculiar green, their own concoction. The paint is set off nicely with 20 x 10-1/2” rims on back and 20 x 9” rims on front and cream leather inside. The total construction was only 2 years and 2 months and had only 30kms on it when they left for the Beach Hop.
A full indepth feature will appear in NZHRM in the near future including construction shots.
Custom Cabover On Cover Of Streen Machine
Our Custom Cabover features in the July 2012 Australian Street Machine magazine. It even made the cover which is very rare for a Kiwi vehicle.
Here’s the article:
THERE are many people who stare off into fat air and come up with a crazy idea for a project car, but there aren’t so many who take that idea and turn it into actual tin and chrome. “Those who can, do,” said Big Shed Customs owner Mark Stead, and he did, building this amazing workshop truck from a vision he had a couple of years ago. “I knew what I wanted in my head and ljust had to work out how to achieve it as I went along. There were no drawings, plans or photos — I just had a vision of what I wanted.”
Big Shed Customs is in Blenheim at the top of New Zealand’s South Island and specialises in custom bodywork. Mark’s employees Steve and Chris turn out everything from spray jobs to turn-key restorations on cars1 to completely scratch—built vehicles like this truck, which they call the Big Shed Customs Cab-Over-Engine, or the COE for short.
Inspired by delivery trucks of the 1930s, the COE started life as a Toyota Hilux chassis, an injected Ford five-litre drivetrain out of a Mustang and eight sheets of 20-gauge panel steel. Fitting the 302, four-speed auto, twin-radiators mounted under the tray and Ford eight-inch diff to the Toyota chassis was simple enough, but the unique bodywork took the bulk of the 3000 man-hours Mark reckons the COE build swallowed.
In those 26 months Mark, Steve and Chris fabricated everything, from the cab, to the nose, tray, interior and the metal flames to the rear of the cab for a bit of hot rodding attitude. Given you can get so many different fibreglass and carbon fibre rod bodies out of the US, why not just get a kit?
“Because I wanted to do something different, buying one wasn’t an option — and what better way to show what I can do?” Mark said.
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