[Jay Pee Dee]

Thx for that Chris,

When I arrived in Kenya (Toyota and Land Rover territory) I was told to forget about finding ANY Chevy here and buy a Toyota instead (Me ??? Buy whaaat??! Yeah right!!).

Me being a bit stubborn I didn't buy ANY Toyotas , No Sir! :-) One day as I was passing by an "Oil Lybia" gas station (Yes! Still in the Gaddafi gang's hands at the time) a strangely familiar looking roof line sticking out of a crowd of parked Japanese 4X4 rice burners activated my peripheral vision [It all happened in a split second, later my driver told me he couldn't understand how I could spot a single vehicle on the back of a parking lot at such a speed and from such a distance - I'm a "Chevy Man" that's why :-) ] .

A quick head turn to the right and my Chevy brain switched to full alert mode....Ta-daaaah!!! An American truck from the sixties...It had to be one, that size, that unmistakable chromy visual appeal. That screamed GM USA to me. I had to make my driver turn around and get a closer look (You could tell he was wondering what I could have possibly seen that had me that excited ).

Couldn't believe it (It had to be an International Harvester or a Suburban and first visual indication was that it was a Sub.

There it was!

A 67-72 Sub ...In Africa!!! Gotta be joking! The beast was relatively well preserved (by African Standards and I have seen trucks in worse conditions in the US or Canada BTW) .

It was a 1969 C-10 with a 250 L6 mated to a Heavy Duty Muncie Four, had a (missing) Smog Air pump, crudely plugged head smog fittings but no power steering. Ignition wires looked duuuh...I'd say ...French!

The venerable Turbo Thrift started right up and was doing its best but it couldn't idle on its six cylinders with those funny looking ignition wires; the old screwed up carb wasn't helping either.

The inside showed its age but apart from the steering wheel which had been brutally abused by a frustrated gorilla mechanic (who used a cold chisel and a hammer to reach the direction indicator retaining screw) it didn't look too-too bad (Mind you the three bench seats were still in there!).

My concern was the oil squirting from underneath at the front pulley (Not looking good at all, I was fearing the worst). Also, the engine oil was black (when I say black I mean black - not even dark brown - it had a very strong gasoline smell which also didn't augur too well for the engine's survival - Was already mentally figuring out how much shipping would cost on a new crank).
From what I understood the vehicle was the only survivor of a family of six brought in Kenya by the US Embassy in the early seventies. Makes sense). I later approached the Embassy for a some old documentation or pictures but to no avail (Too young these State Dept people, I must be gettin old and dumb :-))