Among the big names of hot rodding like Boyd Coddington and Wally Parks, the newer generation has made its mark with men like James Falschlehner, better known as Jimmy Shine. For over seventeen years, the SoCal kustomizer has made some epic creations, but few come close to the 1934 Ford pickup that he built in the late 1990s.

In the beginning, the vehicle was little more than a cab and frame sitting quietly in a friend’s backyard. Shine bought the lot for $500 and got to work putting it together as a test bed for a future build.

“I wanted something that was low-slung, with a lot of nostalgia period pieces on it,” he said. “I did a lot of drawings on paper napkins. I was always thinking about what I would have built had I been alive and racing in postwar Southern California—what would I have learned from those motor pool guys who came back from the war?”

Shine decided to follow the example of Roy Desbrow and his pickup, and got busy. The rear frame rails were brought up 18 degrees, and then stiffened with a crossmember and leaf spring pack from a 1940 Ford. The front, meanwhile, received a Model A crossmember and a suicide front suspension, along with a transverse leaf spring spanning between modified radius rods.

The cab was chopped five inches and channelled six inches, with a custom floorpan made by Shine. Two military surplus seats were installed, as were a dash, gauge cluster, and steering wheel from a 1940 Ford. The bed was constructed from Ford and Studebaker parts, as well as a few custom-fabbed pieces.

The engine is an appropriate flatty V8, equipped with Edelbrock heads and intake manifold, dual Stromberg 97 carbs, and a Potvin camshaft. Beyond that, the mill puts power to a 1939 Ford three-speed manual transmission.

The bare metal aesthetics of the Ford’s body lend it a lot of personality that hot rodders loved. Shine claimed to have once thought of painting it black, but after driving it to a show in its naked state and receiving positive reactions, he changed his mind.

Taken all at once, the pickup is quite a sight, and should easily fetch a five-figure sum as it heads to the Barrett-Jackson auction next month, from January 10th to the 18th. Keep an eye out for when it happens by visiting Barrett-Jackson’s website.