All through the 2019 harvest, Dallas Choat spent sunup to sundown driving a combine over the checkerboard fields of eastern Nebraska and thinking of nothing but the old blue 1980 Chevrolet pickup truck that his father once owned. When he'd planted the corn then falling under the reel, his father had still been alive and they'd known nothing about the whereabouts of the Chevrolet they'd been forced to sell in a farm auction. Now, all of that had changed.

"I was born in '78, but I remember the brochure sitting on the kitchen table and my parents picking out the color combination," Dallas says. At the time, Lynn and Mildred Choat farmed about 1,000 acres around Albion, Nebraska, growing corn and soybeans and raising more than 200 head of cattle. The demands of the farm — hauling cattle, pulling fertilizer tanks, cutting through snowbanks to check on sick cows in the winter — meant they needed to replace their truck every three or four years, so the Choats had become old hands at navigating the option sheet. That year they chose a K20 Scottsdale fleetside with a 185 hp 400-cu.in. small-block V-8, TH400 three-speed automatic transmission, air conditioning, and most importantly the NP205 transfer case with lockout hubs. For the color, they went for an unusual two-tone of Nordic Blue over Medium Blue.

"That was Dad's pickup when I was growing up," Dallas says. "I have tons of memories of it. We took it to Stillwater, Oklahoma, where my older brother went to school. I learned how to drive in it and then drove right through a fence."

Keep reading to discover how Dallas found, reacquired and restored the truck.