Theft and Necessity

At this point, the work is starting to roll in and become a bit more steady. This is a nice feeling. So, one morning I walk out to my truck to go pick up supplies... and then a not so nice feeling comes over me. I can't find my truck. Did I forget where I parked it? I mean, that is a possibility. I walk to the other side of my building... still no truck. Dammit! Walk back over to where I originally thought it was parked and then I see what happened...

Just like many times before, riding my bike through the rough neighborhood in which I live in good ol' Philadelphia. You have to watch out for the all too often broken bottle or... piles of broken window glass from a car that used to be there. My Truck, has been STOLEN! Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

Apparently the night before a bunch of cars on my street were vandalized and stolen. My truck being one of them. So I called the cops and filled out the report. Nothing else I could do. The officer that took my report said I would probably get it back, just not in the same condition. I.E. totally screwed up.

So I waited a few days, decided to start looking for it on my own, with no luck. After about a week I decided to move on and start looking for another. As soon as I made peace with It being gone...I got a phone call. They found my truck! Turns out whoever stole it, decided to return it a half block away from my building. Weird huh?

When I picked it up, I was surprised that it wasn't in that bad of shape. They broke the driver side window and stabbed my center console with a screwdriver about 50 times when they couldn't get the CD player out. Jerks. But that was about it. Oh they also stole my old school B&M hot rod shift knob and the original(it was in the glove box). Turns out that finding a shift knob for a Toyota pickup in a junkyard in Philly is impossible.


So after cleaning up all the glass, replacing the window and piecing together my stabbed and broken console... I was still short a shift knob. Time to fabricate. In homage to my old shift knob, I decided to do something classic and made out of steel. So here it is:

It's my new handmade custom hollow steel Black Die shift knob. Looks cool and I think it makes my truck faster too!