They went back and forth about the make, but finally agreed to go find it. Turns out his brother was right when they stumbled across the vehicle about a block away at a BBQ place in Longmont, Colorado. While they were ogling it in amazement, the owner of the truck came out from getting his food and asked, "Can I help you?"
"We said, 'No sir. We're just looking at your truck,'" Johnny relates. "We talked to him for a minute or so. I told him that I worked for Peterbilt in Denver, and that if he needed anything to just come and see me. He just said, 'OK' and drove away." End of story, right? Hardly.
"About a month later, he came down to the shop to get himself a shirt and just look around. I saw him at the parts counter and said hi. He just looked at me funny for a minute and said, 'Oh, I remember you now. What do you do here?'
" I told him that I am a body shop tech and that I fix trucks for fun! I get to do what I love for a living-why do you ask?"
Standing there with a shirt in hand, the Peterbilt owner then asked a fateful question: "Can you do anything to a truck?"
"Yes," Johnny replied. "What do you want done?"
Truth can be stranger than fiction, we suppose, but the plot thickens. Backtracking a bit, the details are a bit fuzzy as to how the truck was modified before Johnny got involved. The previous owner cut about half of the OEM Peterbilt parts down from their stock size and then welded them back together. He also added a set of 1956 Ford F-100 rear fenders. All of the other parts he made by hand with benders and tools of the trade.