THE PHOENIX CONCEPT

John Melvin at JM Custom Concepts Turns Up the Personalizing Heat on This 2005 Chevy Silverado Crew Cab

If you are in the customizing business and looking to not only get some attention for your gig, but also just want to spend some time building something for yourself instead of the customers, what better vehicle to trick out than a brand new Silverado Crew Cab. Truth be known, John's original intent with the Chevy was simply to be a daily driver for himself and the shop while having enough room to haul the family. The truck was to also double as transportation for his drag racing hobby too. But like most folks who have customizing flowing through their veins, John started with just a few modifications, just some things here and there to clean the truck up and make it a little more personal. Well one thing led to another and before he knew it a year had passed and the truck had made a bold transformation from bone stock to high-performance show.

Using his custom and collision shop skills at his JM Custom Concept facility, John put a lot of work into this sweet, but fast cruiser Crew Cab. The truck definitely stands out with blazing personality thanks to House of Kolor Tangelo Pearl paint color amplified with real fire airbrushed graphics. John handled the base color while friend Al Wilkie at Al's Pinstriping wrestled the fire onto the Chevy. But the inferno orange paint scheme isn't the sum of the exterior customizing. A wealth of body mods have been made too such as flattening the tailgate and shaving the factory taillights to provide the canvas for a molded steel Sir Michaels Steel Rollpan housing three '59 Cadillac bullet-style taillights recessed on each side of the roll pan.

A Reflexxion steel cowl hood teams up with a Precision Grilles EZ Solid Billet Grille to give the front end more of an aggressive look while a Gaylords X2000 Truck Lid protects the contents of the bed. Some other notable changes include adding Escalade door handles, Street Scene Equipment sport mirrors and filling in the gas door body indention.

To give the truck a nice looking stance, Melvin first installed an AIM Industries frame notch, then used a Belltech hanger kit to bring the back end down a few inches to match the one inch drop in the front made possible with the installation of Belltech lowered coil springs. The drop was just the right height to fit over the 22x9.5-inch American Racing wheels mated to Nitto 420 series 305/40-22 tires.

While it is apparent that John spent lots of time on the looks of the truck, the truth of the matter is he spent a lot more time under the hood tweaking the 5.3-liter V8 engine. For starters the engine compartment has been completely tricked out visually as most of the compartment panels and covers have been painted silver then airbrushed to look like riveted metal. Even the manifold cover and intake tubes feature the riveted look which goes great with the loads of braided stainless steel hoses, as well as the polished surfaces of the cool air intake system.

Of course that intake system is cool for a reason. To serve up a huge dose of bonus power John had Bartling Motorsports help with the installation of a Vortech supercharger stuffing eight pounds of boost into the HP Tuner-controlled engine. JBA Cat4ward Headers , AIRAID intake and Flowmaster mufflers work in tandem with the supercharger to generate a tire melting 400-plus horsepower at the rear wheels!

Inside the spacious crew cab interior you will see that John installed tan and orange Katzkin Leather Seat Covers and door panels while smoothing and painting assorted dash and console bezels to keep the bright orange color flowing through the cockpit.

For tunes Melvin spent a lot of time designing and installing a pretty cool sound system. First the entire cab was lined with Dynamat sound deadening material. Then John crafted an amp rack to fit under the rear bench seat which hosts a pair of Rockford Fosgate amplifiers. Behind the rear seat is where John built a molded subwoofer cabinet containing a trio of Infinity eight-inch subs while the Infinity separates were fit into the factory speaker locations in the door panels. Feeding the sound system is a Kenwood head unit all powered by an Optima Yellow-Top Battery .

Growing up in a family that always was building some kind of hot rod or truck, customizing just seems to come natural for John. It is apparent that he likes working with vehicles so much that not only does he do it for a living, but for his own personal enjoyment. The bonus is it is also something his entire family gets to enjoy when they get to cruise around with Dad.



JOHN MELVIN
LAVEEN, AZ
2005 CHEVY SILVERADO CREW CAB