Since the company’s inception in 2018 LS Fabrication has quickly become a trusted source for premiere classic Chevrolet truck parts. The root of their success comes from the fact that the founders, Chris Lange and Kris Hauser are classic truck enthusiasts at their core.
The Stance Is Everything/LS Fabrication partnership dates back to about two weeks after the company started. Project Why Wait proudly features firewall fillers that are within the first 20 to come off the LS Fab bead roller.
After watching LS Fab continue to push toward the top of the classic truck parts market, through a rocky 2020, I had to steal a few digital minutes from Kris and Chris to discuss the past, present and future of LS Fabrication.
The Alberta based pair have been friends for nearing two decades. Like any solid friendship theirs started via a pair of truck’s s10s to be exact.
Yep that’s right, like so many other successful fabrication companies the roots of LS Fabrication are squarely planted in minitruckin’. The LS Fabrication journey started when Kris decided to switch gears and build ‘Kalinda’ a 1951 Advanced Design Era Chevy 1300.
Kalinda is an honest driver, built almost entirely in Kris’ own garage. Chris, the owner of Lange’s Shop a custom auto body shop located just outside of Calgary Alberta, assisted with the fabrication work.
A man, building a truck in his garage with the help of a friend or two, sounds familiar no? I was shocked to hear just how much Kris’ project mirrored my own.
When it came time to shave the firewall of Kalinda Kris hit the same hurdle I did. Unlike C10s, prior to LS Fabrication‘s inception there were virtually no ready to install options on the market.
Three choices were available; fill every previously used hole one by one, use the sole unsightly option that did exist, or go the custom route. Kris obviously went with door number three. Kris’ only guidance for experience metal working Chris was, and I quote, “I want something cool”.
‘Something cool’ became the original firewall design now known as “Kalinda“. Once Chris put a few photos of his finished firewall online interest exploded. Twelve were sold within the first week.
Tracy, DeeDee, and Holly designs soon followed and sales showed no signs of slowing down. Two one time minitruckers had found their market niche and LS –an abbreviated version of Lange’s Shop– Fabrication was born.
Today their firewall fillers can be found on 100s, if not 1000s of trucks. As Kalinda (the truck) progressed any hurdle faced was met with a rather simple question. “Can LS Fabrication do this better?”
The quest to create ‘better’ has lead to an extensive list of LS Fabrication product offerings.
Currently LS makes wheel tubs, transmission tunnels, glove box doors kick panels, and cup holders to name a few items from their catalog.
In 2018 they also stepped into the billet arena offering door handles and custom dash panels. Including a set of dash panels I spotted at SEMA in 2018 in Brad Mckinnon’s 1948 Chevy Suburban.
Today LS now has products available for GM products from 47-98 with Ford products on the horizon.
Being a Canadian Company, competing in a predominantly US market, innovation has been a key part of their success.
“Most of our parts come from necessity”. Chris explains with Kris adding “We’re not here to step on any toes, we just want to make quality custom parts for these trucks”.
A fleet of test cabs helps keep their production tolerances high. Having tossed a few competitors panels into the trash, in favor of making my own, I can appreciate a company that uses their own molds and tooling. They always fit better than a copy of another company’s copy.
But as keen as they are to expand the market LS Fab is not interested in reinventing the wheel.
Now thoroughly embedded in the community they’ve noticed that there are a lot of great products on the market produced by others with their similar mind set.
Many however are quite hard to find. You can find links to obscure e-commerce stores buried within forums. But if that post disappears you’re out of luck. To help bridge the gap from creator to consumer LS Fabrication has also expanded into the distribution arena.
The parts the sold and distributed at LS-Fab.com are designed to save both the garage builder, and full blown fabrication shop time and money. They’re not going to sell you cannons to shoot ants. Instead they’ll set you up with just what you need to have a more enjoyable truck.
A perfect example of this mindset is their recently released Advanced Design era hood strut kit. This tidy strut and mount set up replaces the cumbersome factory springs. The cost of this option is less then half of the other options currently in market.
If it wasn’t already obvious, I’m super excited to be continuing my partnership with LS Fabrication into 2021 and beyond. The opportunity to work with a Canadian company in this game is rare and these are two of the most authentic business owners I’ve ever met.
I’ve already got a few parts on order so look for them real soon. In the meantime if you need any parts for your truck head over to LS-Fab.com.
