I appreciate your logic on the engine choice/option thing. In a way, it mirrors the same sort of circumstances that rodders of the 50s and early 60s faced with going from a flathead to one of those SBC options. The cost to benefit ratio (along with relative size/weight/fit) made the SBC pencil out so much better. Sort of ironic that that self same engine is fading for similar reasons, albeit more than a half century later (mind boggling in its own right).

If I may, I have one request, even though it's YOUR truck. Nostalgia or not, PLEASE, no raised white letter tires.