It took decades to find this 1958 Dodge D100 Sweptside, and then another decade to restore it

The ambition to acquire certain items starts somewhere. It doesn’t matter if it’s a salt-and-pepper shaker collection spurred by visiting your great grandmother, or a particular vintage vehicle that caught your young eyes at the first car show dad brought you to. Such simple catalysts trigger the inherent urge to seek and own, even if it takes decades to achieve. Therein lies the secret to ownership success—time, as in patience. Many vintage vehicle enthusiasts can speak of patience, but perhaps none like Jack Fleury, of Malone, New York. 

Jack is responsible for the exemplary condition of the 1958 Dodge D100 Sweptside gracing these pages; on the surface, an ordinary half-ton workhorse that shouldn’t have required much in terms of patience. Enthusiasts well-versed in light-duty antiquity, however, know otherwise. To understand why, let’s turn the clock back—twice. 

“Years ago, the Jack Kochman Hell Drivers—one of a handful of travelling automotive stunt shows that once existed—used to be a star attraction at our county fair. In 1968, the Hell Drivers had a red-and-white Dodge Sweptside that was part of the usual ramps and jumps action. The fact that a stylish pickup could survive all that kind of abuse left an indelible impression, and I left the show thinking that owning one of those pickups would be a great thing to have. I started looking almost immediately. And kept looking. And looking. Months turned to years; years turned to decades,” according to Jack. 

This was his first bout in which patience was paramount. That’s because by its very nature, the Dodge Sweptside was a rare half-ton breed when new.  

Turning the clock back further to 1956, Dodge’s light-duty trucks had reached the end of its visual appeal, a fact confirmed by relentlessly downward spiraling sales. In short, they were dowdy compared to the Task Force trucks from General Motors. To make matters worse, a restyled Ford F-150 was about to hit the market, too. Thus, Virgil Exner’s “Forward Look” was stylistically administered to the truck series, which provided a noteworthy single-piece, rear-hinged hood that complemented a revised front fascia, new front fenders with hooded headlamps, and a general cab redesign. A key mechanical upgrade was the decision to elevate the 204-hp, 315-cu.in. V-8 engine to standard equipment status. It meant Dodge could boast the largest engine offered in any domestic light-duty truck. 

That’s the basic version of the effort Dodge executed. The visual and mechanical revamp was a big step in the right direction for the struggling series. Questions lingered, though: Would it be enough? 

This is where Dodge’s Special Equipment Group entered the picture. Briefly, the SEG, which was then-managed by Joe Berr, was an in-house department that had been created to alter production trucks based on fleet and individual customer desires. The only caveat to what were effectively carte blanche modifications was that Dodge required SEG to maintain corporate operator and/or safety requirements. Which meant that as the redesigned 1957 light-duty trucks began to roll off the assembly line, SEG had the ability to create an unquestioned halo vehicle, much like Chevrolet’s sensational Cameo.  

That it did. According to lore, it was Berr who devised the Sweptside plan, courtesy of Dodge’s newly minted 1957 parts bins. The effort started with the removal of the existing rear fenders from the long wheelbase D100’s cargo box. Berr and his crew then acquired a pair of quarter panels designed for the all-new Dodge two-door station wagon and adapted them to the sides of the cargo box. To make them fit properly, roughly six inches of metal was grafted onto the forward edge of each fender, and the tailgate reportedly had to be modified to fill the void between the stacked taillamps. The station wagon’s rear bumper was also used, and aside from some special chrome trim on the flanks, a standard two-tone paint scheme added further pizzazz.  

The Sweptside made its public debut as a mid-1957 model. It was an instant hit among dealers and, to an extent, the public, and it remained available until the limited production model—one that was never built on the regular assembly line—was cancelled during the 1959 season. As a result, total output never came close to hitting five-figures-or-more. Depending on which source is cited, anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 were built. And being true workhorses, it’s logical to assume few Sweptsides survived. Which explains why Jack didn’t find one for sale until 2009. 

“I was flipping through a copy of Hemmings Motor News when I spotted this one for sale in Oregon. It was green and had a big dent in the side, but the seller assured me that it was a good truck, so I took his word for it and negotiated the purchase. While I was waiting for delivery, I kept looking at the pictures and it occurred to me it might have been the truck Motor Trend used on the Bonneville Salt Flats way back when. In fact, one of the camper brackets was still in place on the cargo box,” Jack says. 

While paint and a mounting bracket may be circumstantial evidence, the truck itself was a bona fide example of Dodge’s Sweptside. Granted, one that would require a complete restoration; however, Jack is well versed in what it takes to see a project through to completion. He had restored nearly a dozen vehicles by the time the Sweptside landing in his upstate New York driveway. And then reality it. 

“I should have done more due diligence because when I finally got to examine the Dodge in detail my summation was one word: terrible. I could restore it, but it would have been a monumental effort. The engine and transmission were missing, and so was some of the important unique trim. Suffice it to say, I needed to find a donor before I could even think about starting the restoration,” Jack says. 

A second dose of patience was needed as Jack began yet another search for a Sweptside. Patience, and persistence, have a habit of paying dividends, and for Jack the reward came in spades. According to him, “A little while later I found a second truck in southern New Jersey that was said to have all the running gear and most of the trim. I suspect it was an old farm truck used during the summer months because overall it was in decent shape, and the mileage was pretty low. I didn’t really hesitate to buy it because I could finally start working on a truck I had wanted for decades.” 

Jack tells us that the basic idea was to take the running gear and trim from the New Jersey half-ton and transplant it into the one from Oregon. It sounded simple enough, but as work began in 2014 there was a fair amount of body fabrication work that needed to be done. Jack reports that, “One of the quarter panels was so bad on the Oregon truck that I had to cut the rear half off. Fortunately, I found a solid used panel from a California junkyard, the rear half of which was welded onto the other. By doing that, I didn’t have to refabricate the forward extension, which already matched the cab lines perfectly.  

“The next trick was finding replacement taillamp bezels. Both sets on each truck were badly corroded. My son and I went to the Hershey meet and by pure luck my son spotted a nice set for sale. The vendor was not about to negotiate the price because he said he was sure he had the only ones I’d ever find. That’s the fun of restoring a vehicle: Going to swap meets, picking up parts, and looking for certain things. That’s as much fun as going to a car show,” Jack says. 

Another pitfall that comes with restoring a rare vehicle is locating unobtanium trim. Case in point: The Sweptside featured a downward sweeping piece of trim—call it a stylistic “S”—towards the aft edge of each cab door. Jack had one, but the other was lost to time from both the Oregon and New Jersey bodywork. None could be found either, whether through internet searches or conversations with veteran Mopar vendors. In such cases, veteran restorers turn to other methods. 

“I have a friend living near Montreal, Canada, who can make almost anything. I brought him the one piece that I had, along with a spare piece of straight trim I pulled off a Dodge in a California junkyard and said, ‘You’ve got to make me one.’ He said he couldn’t do that, but I told him to try. Well, he did, and when it was done, I couldn’t tell the difference between the original and the fabricated piece. He was able to duplicate it perfectly,” Jack says. 

Each of the Sweptside’s stumbling blocks were conquered, and by the summer of 2020 Jack’s Dodge was finally completed. Following the pandemic, Jack’s been proudly showing the rare and stylish Dodge at regional and national events, in addition to driving it locally when the weather permits.  

“It gets a lot of attention, and a lot of people ask how hard it was to restore it. Honestly, it was like any other I’ve done. Yes, it was a challenge, but every restoration has a challenge hiding somewhere. Sometimes you accomplish something and sometimes you go backwards. Other times you go out in the shop, and it feels like you haven’t accomplished anything all day. But you get a lot of satisfaction doing a restoration because you can see what you’re doing over the long haul. And you end up feeling proud about it when you share it with others.”

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