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Modern C10
4110 Floyd Cox Drive
Norman Oklahoma 73026
Phone: (405) 863-0139
Our Story
Sole Owner of Modern C10 is Mickey Tessneer. Mickey’s earliest memories of working on cars are from around 6 years old helping his dad in the garage. He remembers cutting the rear section out of his dad’s ‘64 Nova SS so his dad could fit bigger tires on the car. Mickey was hooked and stayed under his dad’s feet every step of the way. Through grade school, Mickey developed a very artistic mind when it came to automobiles and started drawing and designing cars, trucks, and parts he imagined. One day he laid eyes on a 1967 Camaro and knew it was the car of his dreams. On Christmas of 1998, at age 14, Mickey’s parents surprised him with his dream car; it was a builder and it was perfect! As Mickey started making plans for the Camaro, he, his dad, and his younger brother started cruising to the local street races on Saturday nights. This is where Mickey found his love for street racing. Through high school, Mickey did his fair share of street racing with that Camaro he built from ‘a poor country boy’s’ budget. But, for a daily driver, he found himself an auction truck; a 1987 Chevy short-wide pickup. Mickey had hopes and dreams for the Camaro and the little truck, but he knew his budget was going to hold him back so he started seeking side work from local racers. Shortly after high school, Mickey learned trade skills such as fabricating and CNC machining. After working for a few years as a CNC Machinist at one of the most prestigious machine shops in Oklahoma City, and all the chassis work he was doing on the side, Mickey was well on his way to starting his very own chassis shop. With hopes to build some of the baddest race cars around, he opened Mickeys Chassis Works at age 24.
Mickeys Chassis Works struggled in the beginning like most small businesses and Mickey worked hard and slept many nights at the shop, taking short naps so he could work around-the-clock. But, he quickly gained notoriety from the fast-growing street racing crowd. One of Mickey’s first big customers from the street scene was James “Doc” Love. After rebuilding Doc’s 1970 Monte Carlo and sweeping the famous Cash Days race, Mickey was swamped with work and business was growing faster than one man could handle. As the business grew, so did Mickey’s team. They built several now-famous street cars for customers like Doc, Jerry “Monza” Johnston, David “Daddy Dave” Comstock, and Mickey’s brother, Brian “Goteebo” Tessneer from the hit TV series, Street Outlaws. After filming the first 2 seasons in his shop, Mickey realized he wasn’t cut out for TV and needed to get back to building cars. Feeling like he peaked in the street racing crowd, Mickey set his sights on drag radial racing.
Mickey started building a 1966 Nova that was left to him by a late-friend, Vern Brown. He and Vern had always dreamed of making it a small-tire radial killer. At the time, the most successful drag radial race car belonged to Ron Rhodes. After Vern’s passing, Mickey made a plan to turn that ‘66 Nova into a car that could compete against Mr. Rhodes. Mickey made his radial debut with the ‘Green Reaper Nova’ in 2015, working his way to #1 qualifier and leaving the race with a new class record! Business boomed with growing popularity of radial racing and several successful racing seasons with the Green Reaper Nova. Mickey quickly realized that he didn’t have time to run his business and race competitively, so he sold the Green Reaper to Ryan Millican, who went on to win many more races and break several more class records!
With the Green Reaper gone, Mickey devised a new plan to build a C10 with modern amenities that he and his family could enjoy. After two years of hard work, Mickey and his crew debuted the truck they call Bougie. However, throughout the build, Mickey realized that the C10 market was lacking. He was inspired to start a new business, Modern C10, with the goal to bring all of the knowledge, innovation, and hard work that he and his crew did while building Bougie to the C10 market. Mickey and his team look forward to bringing quality, made in USA parts to the C10 community.