Rocky Burris and Sasha enjoy an unusually mild winter morning alongside his custom '50 Ford pickup.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
Power is supplied by 350 Chevy V-8 mated to a 350 Turbo automatic transmission. Color-keyed Cal Custom finned valve covers and a Caddy-style air cleaner keep things stylistically correct under the hood.
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The right-hand side of the vintage Olds dash looks correct in the truck. Approximately 10 inches had to be trimmed out of the piece to make it fit in the narrow Ford cab.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
A closer look at the Haneline multi-instrument cluster shows what a perfect fit it is in the original Oldsmobile bezel. Burris blanked out the former rectangular instrument windows above the all-in-one gauge pod.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
Inside, a cut-down '55 Olds dash houses a 6-inch Haneline instrument cluster, while a Grant steering wheel mounts to a straight, non-tilting aftermarket column. Burris built the tall shifter with a beer tap knob, with a green genie on one side and a Rat Fink on the other, courtesy of son Rocky Jr. Burris upholstered the Ford Courier seat and transmission hump himself.
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Burris came up with his own custom design for the upholstery pattern; door panels will get the same treatment.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
The "suicide" doors are smooth, without external hardware. So how do you open them? See the frenched-in antenna near the spotlight? Just give it a smart tug upward and the door pops open.
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Rolling stock consists of wide whitewalls mounted on 15-inch wheels dressed up with mid-'50s Buick hubcaps with bullets added to the flipper bars.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
The lakes pipes routed along the running boards emerge from the front fenders in what Burris describes as `torpedo tubes,' inspired by a Dave Stuckey-built Studebaker truck. `I picked a lot of the old customizers' brains for ideas,' Burris said.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
Son Rocky Burris Jr. handled the pinstriping details, including his dad's shrunken head logo on the tail end of the truck. The 11-gallon Moon tank will eventually be hidden under a rolled-and-pleated tonneau cover.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
The previous owner had already started on the rear fins, but Burris decided they needed to be higher and swoopier. He is especially proud of the unusual cross-mounted '59 Cadillac taillights, with his turned aluminum center sections.
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Sporting a 5-inch top chop and a pancaked hood, the truck recalls the radical show trucks of the early 1960s. Canted quad '59 Thunderbird headlights and a trapezoidal grille opening filled with gold mesh and row after row of chrome drawer pulls completes the look.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
The truck is officially nicknamed "Two Kool," but Burris refers to it as "The Fin." One look at the rear end reveals why. "I tell people it looks like Batman's utility vehicle," Burris says, chuckling.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
Rocky Burris' 1950 Ford radical custom pickup glows like Kryptonite in the winter sunlight. The truck is finished in a custom suede green with darker scallops by Ron Pinkston and fits in the category Burris refers to as "modern nostalgia," with a current drivetrain but all the right old-school styling cues.
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Mike Berry / The Wichita Eagle
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