It’s been said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and if that statement is true, Stan Silva Jr. (60) of Castroville, CA and his family have been dealing with “treasure” for over five decades. In this case, the treasure would be scrap metal, demolition debris, and all other sorts of recyclable products, including aggregates, which can also be used over and over again. The Silva family was recycling long before it was cool, necessary, and perhaps even legally mandated! And although this home built hot rod featured here wasn’t made from scrap or trash, it was creatively put together using a variety of different years and models of Peterbilt trucks, in the early 1990s, making it a “rad ride” that was way ahead of its time.
Stan “Buddy” Silva Jr. is one of four “Stans” in the Silva family, which includes his late father (Stan Silva Sr.), his son, Stan “Lil’ Buddy” Silva III, and his young grandson, Stanley Silva IV, sometimes affectionately referred to as “Cuatro” (which is Spanish for 4) by Stan’s mother. In this story, to avoid some confusion, “Stan” will always refer to Stan Silva Jr., unless otherwise noted. With a large scrap metal, demolition, heavy haul and aggregate operation with multiple locations, the Silva family has worked hard to make their mark and take care of each other.
Growing up in the heyday of trucking and truck shows – the 1980s and early 1990s – Stan fell in love with hot rods and cool trucks, and the truck he built seen here is a testimony to that love. But the Silva family goes back much further than that – about 100 years back, in fact.
The Silva family, which included Stan’s great grandfather and his brothers, immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s from the Azores, a group of islands that were part of Portugal, located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, about 800 miles west of Portugal’s mainland. Settling in the Watsonville and Salinas area of northern California, near the coast and Monterey Bay, the family became dairy farmers, like so many other immigrants from that area. Fast forward a few decades and to the next generation, and Stan’s grandfather George, while working at a landfill in nearby Prunedale, CA, saw a lot of metal just being thrown away and got the bright idea to start a recycling and scrap business.
With help from his son, Stan Silva Sr., George and his wife’s family formed A&S Metals in 1969 – the “A” was for the Ash family, and the “S” was for the Silva family. In 1974, they bought out the Ash side of the business but kept the name the same. In those days, the business was a wrecking yard and scrap metal operation that was located in Moss Landing, one town over from their current location in Castroville, where they moved to in 1989. Starting out as a 3-acre site, the operation now covers 26 acres and has several divisions, including a recycling center, a scrap yard, an aggregate plant, a fabrication shop, and a truck yard, just to name a few.
George Silva died in 2000 at the age of 86 years old, but Stan Sr., who had run much of the business since the beginning, had no problem taking the reins, because he had been the leader all along. Stan Sr. always worked hard, and Stan Jr., who was born in 1965, did not see his father much while growing up. In the 1970s and 80s the company got heavily into demolition work, and that created a lot of growth. Stan Sr. would work in the yard all day and then drive truck all night, hauling scrap or demolition debris, and moving equipment between sites. Before A&S started, Stan Sr. hauled logs and wood chips, and Stan Jr. can remember going out with his dad in the 1958 Peterbilt he drove when he was only three or four years old.
In 1974, the company bought a brand-new day cab Peterbilt 359 with a short hood, and that became Stan Sr.’s everyday driver (the company still has this truck, and Stan Jr. plans to rebuild it soon). At 15 years old, Stan Jr. began driving a roll-off truck locally before he even got his license. Once he turned sixteen he got his Class 1 license and started hauling scrap, pulling a 40’ trailer with metal sides with his dad’s 1974 Peterbilt 359. The trailer did not dump, so it had to be unloaded with a giant magnet hooked to a crane. During his senior year of high school, he was able to get out early each day, and from there he went straight to work – in fact, most days, he drove his work truck to school. Driving a 1979 Peterbilt 352 cabover roll-off truck with a 430 Detroit, he hauled scrap and concrete debris from a nearby demo job until it got dark. Then, in 1984, after graduating from high school, he started driving his dad’s Peterbilt full-time.
Throughout the late 1980s, Stan Jr. was all about work – much like his dad. Hauling a lot of scrap out of Army bases in California and Nevada, and running down to Los Angeles a lot, the company bought him a used 1984 Peterbilt 359 with a 63” sleeper to accommodate the longer runs. As the business expanded, so did the trucking operation, and that ongoing success was a combination of luck, hard work, and taking chances. In 1989, the company built its first end dump trailer, from the ground up, which was the lightest and toughest out there. Today, they still build every one of their end dumps based on the design of that first one.
Looking to expand the trucking operation even more, Stan Silva Jr. Trucking was formed in 1991, mostly to handle all the trucking and transportation needs of A&S Metals and the aggregate side of the business, but eventually they grew to include hauling for hire, as well. Starting out with a Kenworth T800 transfer, Stan hired a female driver to run it, and that worked out so well, the next two drivers he hired were also women, and they ran transfers, too. In 1992, Stan got married, and in 1995, his son Stan “Lil’ Buddy” Silva III was born. Unfortunately, they got divorced in 1998, and Stan eventually got full custody of his son, who, like his father and grandfather, learned how to work hard.
Growing up in the 1980s, Stan fell in love with the band ZZ Top and all the cool hot rods in their music videos. In those days, the Santa Nella truck show (in California) was a big deal and Stan loved seeing the custom rigs there. Inspired by some of the greatest truck customizers of the time, which did not work in fancy shops or build trucks for anyone besides themselves, Stan decided to build his own hot rod semi, right in his driveway at home. Back then, custom parts were not readily available, so most things had to be designed and built by the truckers themselves, and that is where the truck on this month’s cover and centerfold (and these pages) came from.
The project started in 1991, and it began with a cab from a 1965 Peterbilt 341 concrete truck (which is basically the same cab that would later be used on the 359). Purchasing two new blank frame channels from the local Peterbilt dealer, Stan made every hole by hand with an air drill. The truck also got a “juiced up” 400 Big Cam Cummins, a 13-speed, and an Air Trac suspension, all acquired from wrecked trucks. The hood was a 359 crate hood with no cut-outs from the mid-1980s, which also got a 359 grill and surround, along with 13 Kenworth grill bars (which was a popular thing to do back then). The truck also got double square headlights from a Peterbilt 379 which had to me modified to fit.
Wanting the entire exterior of the truck to have that clean and sleek hot rod look, Stan shaved everything – the external air cleaners, the door handles, the hood latches – and hid the air tanks between the frame rails. The doors and hood were set up to open at the push of a button, 6-inch stacks were installed, and seven evenly spaced cab lights with glass lenses were added to the roof. A custom stainless visor with a unique rolled bead was purchased from Coast Counties Peterbilt (they had built one like this for their tow truck and Stan liked it), the mirror brackets were flipped to be lower, and the front suspension shackles were shaved and the springs stressed to get the truck lower (there were no air-ride kits back then).
Next came the paint and graphics, and Stan wanted to do something catchy yet different. Assisted by Rod Styles at Alan Signs in Salinas, CA, the base color was originally inspired by a Chevy pickup Stan bought and, when it came time to mix the color, they started with a metallic turquoise from a Geo Metro (remember those). The turquoise color they formulated is the same color Stan uses on all their trucks today. Then, magenta-colored “rips” were sprayed on the hood and cab – these types of graphics were gaining popularity back then, replacing the long and ever-popular flame paint schemes.
Some of the other unique exterior items this truck has includes an 18” stainless bumper with rolled ends made in-house, battery and step boxes from the mid-1980s with custom lids made by Stan, and 135-gallon 26-inch diameter fuel tanks, also made in-house, with one of them being split to hold the hydraulic fluid for the wet kit to run their end dump. The hot rod rig also got Hogebuilt stainless full fenders on steel brackets, a custom light bar on the back featuring seven lights with glass watermelon lenses and custom billet bases on each side, and a polished stainless steel deck plate, all made by Stan.
Moving inside, Stan took two square door cab dashes and built one custom “hot rod” dash, installed a vintage A/C unit from a street rod, and polished the door hinges (back then he did most of his own polishing). The entire truck was rewired using a harness from a Peterbilt 379, and then Howdy Ledbetter of Interiors by Howdy did the inside in tweed and leather, embossing the exterior’s “ripped” scheme graphics into the headliner. The interior has a definite 1990s vibe, for sure! Last but not least, Stan made the window in the back of the cab roll up and down, and claims he was the first ever to do that.
Built to pull one of their custom end dumps, the truck was finished in late 1992 and then put into service. The following year, after Stan’s dad expanded and opened a facility in Montana (and bought a ranch there), Stan began making more trips up there, and it didn’t take long for him to realize he needed to put a sleeper on his truck. And, in all honesty, he wanted to repaint the truck anyway, because the original graphics did not match on each side, and that drove Stan crazy. So, in 1993, the decision was made and a 63-inch standup sleeper from a Peterbilt 379 was acquired for the truck, which has a modest 260-inch wheelbase.
Tearing the truck apart and taking it all the way back to bare metal, the sleeper was installed, all the door handles and vents were shaved to match the cab, and the rolling window in the back of the cab was moved to the back of the sleeper. Then, the entire truck, including the graphics, which were changed a bit and made to match on each side, was repainted. Stan also repowered the truck with a brand-new CAT 3406C with a single turbo and marine injectors, a rebuilt 18-speed, and low mount air-ride and rears from a truck he ordered for the company (Stan swapped the rears that were in his truck with the ones that came on this brand-new 1993 Peterbilt). The 6-inch stacks were replaced with 8-inch pipes, and they are still on it today.
The rebuild was completed in 1994, and then Stan drove the truck for several years. Then, it pulled Stan’s racecar hauler (which he also built) for many years, and then his son Stan Silva III (Lil’ Buddy) drove it for a while, along with a few other drivers here and there, and then it was finally “retired” around 2017, with about 200,000 miles on it, because CARB would no longer allow it to be licensed and registered to haul loads in the state. Known as truck #65, that number represents a lot of things, including the year of the truck (well, the cab at least), the year Stan was born, and the number he used for many years on his racecar.
Stan started racing his 3-wheeled ATC motorcycle (remember those) while still in high school, then went on to race “dwarf” cars, which were miniature versions of full-sized cars with motorcycle engines, then full-size dirt cars, and then stock cars, starting out in the NASCAR Southwest Tour before transitioning into the Winston West Series. Stan was really good on road courses, which eventually led him to do a limited schedule in the NASCAR Busch Series for a few years, which was just one step below the top tier Cup Series, racing against guys like Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick. Racing in various states, and even in Mexico City, this is when Stan licensed his company to run all 48 states, because his hot rod Peterbilt was part of the company, and it pulled the hauler. He never won a race at the Busch level, but for being a self-funded single car team, he still did pretty good. He participated in his last race in 2012 and then sold everything.
During the early 2000s, Stan kept busy, as he took a more active role in the company when his dad moved to Montana. While running the California division, which had three locations at the time, racing, and raising his son, Stan started taking Lil’ Buddy out with him in the truck – and he loved it. At just five years old, Lil’ Buddy would jump into the various pieces of heavy equipment in the yard and learn how to operate them. Stan is very proud of his son, who is 30 years old now, and an integral part of the family operation. But everything changed in 2007 when Stan’s father died. To this day, Stan starts every morning with, “How would dad do it?”
Forced to wear many hats in the company, from a leadership standpoint, Stan decided to put his head down and get to work. In 2008, he built their operation in Los Banos, CA; in 2009 he bought a company in Watsonville, CA; in 2011 he started their operation in Madera, CA; and, more recently, he opened a new facility in Nevada. Today, with eight locations and more than 200 employees, A&S Metals and its sister companies offer all types of metal recycling and CRV services, full-spectrum demolition services, concrete and asphalt crushing and aggregates, and comprehensive trucking services. With 16 trucks at Stan Silva Jr. Trucking, they offer heavy haul, lowboy, step deck, drop deck, high side, bottom dump, roll back and roll-off services.
When Peterbilt announced the end of the model 389, Stan figured it was time to get a new personal truck for himself, even though he doesn’t go trucking very often, and also one for his son. Ordering matching 2024 Peterbilt 389X trucks, one in turquoise and the other in metallic gray, the trucks have sequential VIN numbers but were built a month apart. Equipped with 605-hp Cummins engines, 18-speed transmissions, 3.36 rears, and 280-inch wheelbases, each truck has a standup sleeper and a high-roof cab. Since taking delivery of the trucks, they have built and installed custom bumpers, visors, boxes and lids, fuel tanks, fender brackets, deck plates, mirror brackets, and a host of other unique pieces. Besides the stacks from Pypes and the stainless steel rear fenders from Hogebuilt, the guys built everything else, right there in their shop.
After being invited to the Peterbilt factory show and parade in Denton, TX, last year (2025), Stan decided to spruce up the old hot rod a bit and then hauled it with the 389X out to Texas. Painting the entire motor and then installing a polished stainless firewall, which hides all the wires under the hood, he also added a few new shiny things like a shock box cover with SILVA cut into it behind the sleeper, custom flaps and weights, and stainless heavy haul “ramps” on the back. Stan has been working with stainless steel since way before it became commonplace like it is today, and almost every accessory they make for their trucks is stainless. One last cool newer touch is the license plate, which reads LOWLIFE. This is not a fake plate, it is an actual plate, from the California DMV, and the truck is registered (it just can’t pull a load). Plans to add air-ride to the front axle of the old hot rod truck are in the works, as well, at some point in the future.
Recently, Stan and some of the guys were sitting around and the idea of having a truck show, in his dad’s honor, was suggested. Well, it was quickly decided, and on April 18, 2026, they are going to do just that. With help from Stan’s niece Shealynn, the show will be held in their yard in Castroville, but due to the limited space (only 65 bobtails), the trucks will be by invite only. But anyone is welcome to come. There will be food, drinks, vendors, giveaways, and awards. The event, called the Stan Silva Sr. Memorial Truck Show, is a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Come out and join the fun for a good cause – we at 10-4 Magazine will be there, and we hope to see you, as well (find their page on Facebook for details).
Building his house in 1990 just down the street from the yard, Stan still lives there today. In 2005, Stan got married to Tammy, who he had known since high school. She has a son named Clayton (30) and a daughter named Macy (26). Stan also has three grandkids he adores, with one of them being little Stan Silva IV. At their house, the same place where he built his hot rod Peterbilt featured here, they have some toys that include a turquoise 1933 three-window Ford coupe, a purple 1955 Chevy Bel Air, which was his dad’s car, a custom turquoise 2016 rock crawler Jeep, which was purchased as a salvage after it was stolen and stripped when new, and a “Tonka” truck, which is a turquoise 2019 International with a 4-door crew cab. This truck was destined to be a fire truck, but on its way to be delivered, it, along with three others, rolled over in a wreck (Stan bought two of them). Stan actually uses this truck on occasion to haul small pieces of equipment to remote areas in the mountains – but it’s mostly just for fun.
At 82 years old, Stan’s mother is still alive and well, and, along with his three sisters, one of which is also named Tammy, they all live nearby (I can only imagine the confusion when all those “Stans” and “Tammys” get together for a family gathering). They also have an adorable white English Labrador Retriever named “Diesel” that, at just one year old, already weighs 90+ pounds. We had a lot of fun playing with him at Stan’s house, as he ran around the kitchen, with squeaky toys in his mouth. When not working or trucking, Stan enjoys raising cattle and spending time on his ranch. He is also currently building a new log home in Nevada and hopes to one day retire there. Missing his father, who was his hero and mentor, Stan isn’t looking to actively grow the business much more – he just wants to get better at everything they do.
Being a bit of a workaholic like his dad, Stan Silva Jr. is humble but proud of what he has accomplished since taking over the operation. Following life lessons his father taught him like, “Forgive but never forget,” and “Trust but verify,” has helped him to keep things on track. And this cool home built hot rod Peterbilt, that was put together in his driveway back in the early 1990s and showcases Stan’s level of creativity and the scope of his talents, is a time capsule and a memory of the way things were. Well, not many trucks back then were this custom, so I guess it was more of a look ahead at what was to come than a memory of what was. Either way, 35 years later, it’s still a rad ride, for sure!