I was scrolling through my Twitter feed when I came across an interesting tweet from fellow auto journalist Chris Paukert that included photos and video of a life-sized Chevy S-10 carved in granite sitting. It was sitting among gravestone plots on the property of Kotecki Family Memorials in Cleveland, Ohio.
And that’s what makes it bizarre.
Paukert said he was driving past the headstone carver’s business on the way to the airport when he saw the S-10 popping out of the granite. So, of course, he had to stop and take pictures.
The backstory on the granite Chevy S-10
After digging into the granite Chevy S-10 memorial, Paukert found a flickr post with a little more explanation.
While this isn’t actually a headstone, it’s still a memorial of sorts. Sculpted by Edward Kotecki III to commemorate his love of automobiles, the granite truck is an exact replica of a vehicle leased from a local Chevy dealer. Kotecki used a pneumatic chisel to trim the granite within a foot of the design surface, then manually removed the rest of the granite by hand with a hammer and chisel. The sculpture itself is contained within three blocks of granite.
It took Kotecki a year to complete.
Was on my way to return my rental car before catching a flight out of Cleveland when I spotted something odd by the side of the road. Couldn’t help but double back and take a closer look.
(*Insert Bob Seger theme song pun here*) pic.twitter.com/7BXl2dbYt2
— Chris Paukert (@CPAutoScribe) November 27, 2022
The bottom line
The Kotecki family has owned and operated this business for more than 100 years, and we love the attention to detail you see in this sculpture – and the fact that it seems to transfer into work they do for headstones.
In addition to the cool factor of this sculpture, one of the reasons we were so intrigued is the fact that Publisher Tim Esterdahl’s first new truck happens to have been a 2003 Chevy S-10.
So, we have to ask: If you were going to get a life-size granite marker in the shape of a truck for your grave, what truck would you choose?
Editor’s note: Photos on this page courtesy of Chris Paukert.
