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Goodguys Fuel Curve Top 10 of 2020 – #8 High Plains Pickup

Editor’s Note: No matter how you look at it, 2020 was a year that nobody expected, nor wished for. Event postponements, cancellations, social distancing, and more had old car enthusiasts out of sorts. Our scene revolves around gathering at events and showing off with others. We’re a community, even if don’t live near each other.

Thankfully, hot rodding is all about overcoming obstacles and making things better. Goodguys and Fuel Curve worked hard in 2020 to cover the altered landscape of the vintage car and truck scene, bringing you fresh and creative content every week – over 400 stories in total. We’re using the last few days of the year to revisit the Top 10 stories of the year. We hope you’ll enjoy this look back as we start to prepare for better times in 2021.

#8 – High Plains Pickup: Mark Gruss’ 1956 Ford F100

We weren’t surprised to see Mark Gruss’ 1956 Ford F100 in our Top 10 list this year. The beautiful build paired with the dramatic photography captured by ace photographer John Jackson made quite the combo. The story of Mark’s F100 published early in 2020 on January 29th as a Goodguys 2019 Scotts Hotrods Truck of the Year Early finalist from the Colorado Nationals.

The interesting part about Mark’s ’56 Ford was that the original intention was to search out and build a ’56 Chevy truck…when builders Danny and Doug LaRue were searching for a Chevy pickup, they came across this big window Ford. It was exceptionally clean and solid, plus it was somewhat local. Once they showed the Ford to Mark along with their plans for subtle custom touches, he was sold.

Read the full feature and see more of Mark Gruss’ ’56 Ford F100 HERE.

Director of Media & Marketing

A lifelong car kid, Steven grew up around drag strips – his name may sound familiar because his grandfather is Bob Bunker, a Pro Mod pioneer who piloted the “Folsom Flash” ’55 Chevy from the ’70s through the ’90s. Steven’s father, Bob Bunker Jr., heads up Bunker Motorsports and is a regular in the West Coast racing scene, building chassis and race cars for more than 30 years. With genetics like that, it’s no wonder Steven has a passion for both cars and motorsports. In addition to helping his father and honing his fabrication skills at Bunker Motorsports, Steven began shooting photos at the drag strip and capturing the action with his Canon camera. He is now artfully crafting stories around the awesome machines at the shows, as well as the men and women behind them. When he's is not on the road covering events, he spends his downtime out on the water fishing, building his 1962 Chevy Nova, or cruising his 1987 GMC Suburban.