If you’ve been building classic trucks for any amount of time, you know the deal: long beds are everywhere, but the short beds are what everyone wants.

Shortening a C10 frame has always been a job for a skilled fabricator with a lot of time and measuring tools, often taking days to get just right.

A new line of kits from Classic Performance Products (CPP) might just change that, turning an expert-level job into a weekend project for the home builder.

The C10 Frame: Long Bed to Short Bed

The most popular kit in CPP’s new lineup is designed to convert a 1963-72 C10 long bed to the more desirable short bed length. The genius of the kit is its template system.

Instead of paper guides, CPP provides heavy-duty steel templates that bolt directly to the frame, showing the user exactly where to make their cuts and drill new holes.This takes all the guesswork out of the most critical part of the job. Once the frame is cut, the kit includes strong, laser-cut C-channel plates and hardware to bolt the two halves back together for perfect alignment before the final welding.

The Ultimate Swap: C10 to Blazer

For builders looking for a more radical transformation, CPP is also offering a kit to convert a C10 frame to the even shorter Blazer wheelbase. This is a much more involved process, but the kit makes it manageable for the home garage.The templates for this swap not only provide the cutting guides but also have all the holes pre-marked for locating the new rear body mounts needed to bolt on a Blazer tub.

Making a Hard Job Easy

This is one of those simple ideas that makes you wonder why no one did it sooner.

By taking the most intimidating part of a frame swap—the measuring and cutting—and making it nearly foolproof with a template, CPP has made one of the coolest classic truck mods accessible to a lot more people.

For anyone who’s been staring at their long bed truck and wishing it was shorter, this kit might be the final push you need to get out in the garage and start cutting.