Creating a farmer-style truck bed in our 1950 Chevy pickup | Redline Update - Hagerty Media

It’s bed time for our 1950 Chevrolet 3600 pickup—but that doesn’t mean Davin gets to take a nap. Rather, our resident mechanic is spending more time repairing rust to get this workhorse back into good health.The 3600 is crusty, but Davin’s choosing to embrace the truck’s patina rather than eliminate it. With the wood bed floor completely gone and the support metal in poor shape, getting the bed ready to haul parts and projects requires more than an afternoon with a wire brush and some brake cleaner.

“When we built the Swap-to-Street Ford pickup back in 2015, we completely replaced the bed,” said Davin. “It took a while to get the character right on the new bed. It still looks a bit off to me. Since this Chevy has the bedsides and the overall wear is the same, I really want to do what I can to keep it.”

It’s not just about the look, though; this truck is also proof that not every project has to drain your wallet. If you’re willing to invest a bit of time, fabricating a few filler panels yourself is significantly cheaper than buying them from the parts catalog.

Davin does admit that the DIY solution is not always the most frugal or even the most practical choice. For more complicated pieces—like the rear panel below the tailgate, which attaches to the frame rails—it made sense to spring for the pre-fabricated part. The rest of the fabrication process focused on getting the truck solid enough to use and ready for a rough-sawn wood bed floor.

Since the local shop that’s milling the Chevy’s new floor is dealing with a decent backlog of business, we don’t get to see the completed bed this episode. To see that bed floor go in and to witness the truck take its first drive, be sure to subscribe to Hagerty’s YouTube channel and receive notifications with each video that goes live.