10/03/2026
Happy anniversary, Variants!
Thank you so much for allowing me to serve you this past year.
It’s been huge for me. Looking through this gallery of metal I’ve repaired, knowing that this endeavor was the key to my own personal and family independence, brings a very special kind of fulfillment.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This year, I want to share an update on my passion project, Maria:
Many of you who followed along since last year have seen this truck, the post, or heard the story.
She was the truck I dreamed of, but when I dragged her home, she was a dead yard ornament sitting on open grass near Cedar Creek Lake.
A 96 C/K 1500 vortec, slammed onto the stop blocks, parked for a fleeting misfire and massive oil leaks.
The seller swore up and down she’d crank—said I should just try her first (she may even drive the walk to the house), throw a battery in, that he just didn't feel like fighting all her "quirks."
Those quirks weren't a fight. Transporting him around safely for years was, and she won. But Maria paid for it: two years rotting in the dirt after running on a zip-tied distributor, cracked timing cover, zero brake vacuum, and oil leaking from every seam.
Tonight, sitting out here at 3 AM looking at what’s in front of me, I am damn proud of this machine.
Every single mechanical detail on this truck has passed through my hands—outside of the heads and valve body.
I stripped the entire front accessory drive off down to raw metal while I rebuilt her system by system: intake, throttle body, complete cooling loop, and transmission supports. I converted the ignition to a solid HEI hybrid. I serviced the transmission, re-shielded and sealed the wiring end-to-end with new plastic and cloth wrap, and replaced the transmission filter and seals, oil pan gasket, filter housing seals, and timing cover gasket.
6 rolls of cloth harness tape. 30 feet of braided replacement wire in 3 gauges. 15 feet of fresh split loom, sealed down tight.
All while my 2-year-old son played with real wrenches, handled real weight, and imitated everything I did—wrapping hard lines right next to my harness trunks as I worked.
She won't be my truck just because my name is on the title. She’s mine because I raised her from the dead like a shadow mare.
Down the road is a seemingly endless list of upgrades and restorations. But right now, I'm down to fresh fluids, tank and fuel system cleaning, and an exhaust patch. Just a few late-night sessions like this, and she fires.
In the last year, many of your vehicles have been repaired right next to the deepest mechanical restoration my hands have seen on a single machine. From a rolling chassis stripped down to the block, to just a handful more dedicated pushes to tearing up the asphalt again and moving my world for me.
I know how many yards around here are holding onto old iron—vehicles people refuse to let go of, sitting in the grass waiting for someone who actually knows how to respect them. They don't belong in a scrap yard; they belong back on the road.
Every vehicle has character, and we’re just part of their stories. Let me fix your iron. Let’s bring that machine back to life and make a story together.
If you’ve got a project sitting in the grass that deserves this level of work, bring it by Gavin's Variant Garage.
Gavin Mitchell
Happy birthday to:
Gavin's Variant Garage
