A man from Yellowknife who is fighting terminal brain cancer has had his dream fulfilled of having his dream truck customized for his son.
Yvan Brien retired and sold his own truck and repair shop in Yellowknife last fall. A month later, he fell ill while vacationing in Mexico.
Yvan hoped to restore the truck himself after purchasing it a decade ago, but with time now so important, he shipped it to Nova Scotia to be customized.
The transformation took two months and roughly 1,200 hours, and the Chevy will be left for his son Matt.
“I’ve loved this truck since I was 12 years old,” says Yvan. “Here I am, telling my son he gets to keep this truck. If nothing else, it's the one thing that's going to stay in the fleet."
"I see all the care and joy he gets out of that thing,” says Matt. “It’s going to mean a lot to me."
The team at Curtis Customs in Elmsdale, N.S., says they were more than happy to take on the project.
"He's happy. All we wanted to do was get it to this point where we could get him out on the road, take him for a run. And you’ve seen his reaction,” says Curtis Customs owner Curtis MacLean. “When he hears that noise, it's right through his chest.”
Yvan says for him, the truck isn’t just a truck.
"This little thing here is a gem. (Matt) should be able to take care of it and cherish it for a long time,” says Yvan.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jayson Baxter.
