Chevy Camper Merle Haggard - $75,000 (Reno)
Link:
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto...696877685.html
The Story
Merle always called it “The Camper”. He used this camper to run around town and camp in. He camped mostly on Lake Shasta and local lakes to Redding California. Merle lived in Palo Cedro, which is around 10 miles away from downtown Redding Ca. The truck was purchased in 1987 used and then customized. Merle wanted to drive a 10-year-old truck because of a song he had written years before named “Are the Good Times Really Over (I Wish a Buck was still silver). He has even mentioned this in an interview on "The Ralph Emery Show". Merle had the interior upholstery and bucket seats covered in silver Naugahyde to also go with the song. This he told me. Interestingly at the same time he had a 57 Ford T-Bird and a Ford Mustang with the same Silver Naugahyde and Silver Velour, again he loved Silver interior and its strikingly beautiful in person.
The biggest feature of the truck is the custom Lobo Camper he designed. I saw the design myself in paper, he designed it on an Old School drafting board like we had in High School Drafting classes. He had these drawings in his houseboat that I personally saw. Merle introduced me to Jimmie Collins, the owner of Lobo Camper Mfg. Co. in Redding California. I also met Merle at Jimmies shop several times when Merles second camper was being built. Back then it was common to see Merle around town. Once I was at Jimmies and sure enough while I was there, Merle showed up to pet the campers.
The customization of the Camper is vast. Aside from the silver interior, and the built-on Camper Merle had upgrades to the engine such as Headers and newer carburetor and an Aluminum Intake manifold. The stereo is something to behold. The stereo is a new Sony removable face head unit. (the original cassette stereo is included), Soundstream 5 channel Amp and lots of speakers including a 15” subwoofer under the queen-sized mattress. The dash is later than 1977, I believe it is 1987. I know for sure the longbed fleetside was also a custom feature by Merle. He said to me, “I do not like those ugly gas caps”, so he put a later model bed with doors over the gas fill caps.
There is a Cadillac Steering wheel and many smaller custom features of this truck.
The truck cab has a cutout and boot above the driver and passenger where when you look up you see a mirror in a 45 degree angle. From the side of the Camper, like most Campers you see this angle for wind. This is genius. Merle had this designed so that while driving you can see the blind spots on the side of the truck, its super smart and useful. Jokingly I asked him if this was the real intent of this mirror.
The Camper has the original wheels Haggard installed. I have of course put tires on a couple of times. The tires on it now are BF Goodrich Radial TA's which are hard to get these days, tires are around 3 years old with maybe 1,000 miles.
Very few paint imperfections on the truck or camper. No rust or cancer anywhere on the truck.
Recent crate motor. It's a newer style engine (not LS) and upgraded head and aluminum intake. The motor is very strong and had a mild cam. Ceramic headers to replace the old headers Haggard installed. Exhaust has been replace recently.
There is much documentation including the two registrations in the images as well as an insurance card that I was required to use for over a year after I acquired the camper. There are 3 notarized documents, 1 from the builder Jimmie Collins, 1 from Merles close friend at the time Mike Martin (of over 20 years) that attest to this being Merles Camper and one attesting to Merle telling Mike that he gave the camper to me. For the 4th document I will sign and notarized the story of how I acquired the camper.
There will be a total of 4 notarized documents, 2 registration cards,1 insurance card in Merles name and Insurance company.
