NEMO Battlewagon: A 12-Valve Cummins Delivery Truck Turned Tactical Beast

IS THE NEMO BATTLEWAGON THE ULTIMATE DIESEL CONVERSION?

It’s not every day that you come across a fully tricked-out delivery truck that’s been equipped to hold enough heavy artillery to make any Second Amendment activist or post-apocalyptic zombie survivor wet his pants. Though it looks battle ready, the initial idea behind this vehicle started out very much unlike what you see on these pages.

It was ﬁrst conceived when Clint Walker noticed how frequent and troublesome trips to the ﬁring range had become. Clint is the vice president of NEMO Arms, a leading manufacturer of precision long-range AR-type ri- ﬂes, including the world’s ﬁrst .300 Win Mag AR and U.S. Military Tier ONE operations.

The NEMO Battlewagon rides on a 3/4-ton Chevy Suburban chassis and has a semi-stock 12-Valve Cummins backed up by a 47RH trans nestled between the rails.

A pair of Kinetik batteries is the heart of the electrical system that runs a whole host of LED spotlights both inside and outside the truck. Power also flows to the Accuair E-Level air bag system, which utilizes an Oasis XD 3000 compessor and huge 3,200-lb Contitech air bags at each corner.

He quickly came to the realization that making 45- minute trips to the range to test new products would be easier with a proper vehicle to haul them in along with all of the tools and supplies he would need.

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At ﬁrst, Clint decided it was time to step things up by purchasing a mail-type truck that could be modiﬁed to hold the company’s prod- uct. Since he wasn’t too familiar with these types of vehicles, he gave his old friend Jeff Davy of De- vious Customs a ring to look at options for his new project. From there, Jeff searched around and found this ’66 Grumman Kurbmaster that was very local to his Riverside, California-based shop. After a short trip to go check it out, he ended up taking it for a reasonable offer and hauling it away in order to get the ball rolling.

Custom Tough Country bumpers are fitted front and rear. A full complement of LED lighting, along with United Pacific HID headlights lights up the road ahead.

A 4-inch straight-pipe exhaust exits in front of the Dodge rear axle. The custom exit trim with the words “Liberal Repellant” garners a lot of attention.

With missing ﬂoor sections and a trans- planted Cummins-powered drivetrain, this truck was already a work in progress that was in need of some love. Since Clint used to write for a few automotive magazines in the past, he’d become familiar with the lowered truck scene. So, instead of just ﬁxing the newly acquired delivery truck, he decided that he wanted to let Jeff have his fun with it and fully deck it out. From there, Jeff and his crew, including Jeff Johnson and Nathanial Dray, started the disassembly of this sizable beast.

BECAUSE THIS THING NEEDS TO BE A COMPLETE ROLLING ARSENAL IT WAS LOADED WITH A PLETHORA OF NEMO ARMS PRODUCTS THAT ARE DISPLAYED THROUGHOUT THE VEHICLE.

First thing on the list of modiﬁcations was to plant the ride ﬂat on the pavement. Like most vehicles, this truck and its chas- sis were never designed to sit shockingly low. To handle this task, the Devious crew dropped the frame from under the body and created a new one out of 2×8-inch steel tubing and a front clip salvaged from a 1989 Chevy Suburban. On the front, a new set of control arms was fabricated and a pair of Western Chassis dropped spindles was attached. Then a pair of 3,200-pound ContiTech air bags was mounted, while the sway bar was adapted to the adjustable suspension. On the rear, a parallel four-link and Watts link keep the rearend from a Dodge 2500 truck in place. A rear cantilever linkage was made to lift the truck up with the use of a matching set of air bags. Helping to keep this truck from tipping over on the road is a torsion- style sway bar made to ﬁt the rear.

The whole interior was custom made including the flooring and dash. The original Dodge A/C system was retained while a B&M shifter is the gear selector. And in true military style, gauges are minimal and systems are controlled via a bank of dash-mounted switches.

The Battlewagon is not only a rolling showroom for NEMO Arms, it also acts as a mobile gun shop complete with repair tools and vises.

Once the chassis was complete, the ﬂoor was closed up with 18-gauge alu- minum sheet metal and received a durable coating of Line-X. Sealed off, the dash was made functional with the addi- tion of a few gauges and AccuAir eLevel and iLevel controllers for the air suspen- sion. It’s now drivable with the use of a Flaming River steering column complete with a black anodized Draft steering wheel from Billet Specialties, and a custom foot pedal assembly also helps out in this de- partment. For looks and added comfort a pair of air-equipped seats from Bostrom were added. Because this thing needs to be a complete rolling arsenal it was loaded with a plethora of NEMO Arms products that are displayed throughout the vehicle. To make sure they are always in good working order a workbench from Tough Country was ﬁtted in as well as a stainless toolbox.

This is only a small sample of the guns NEMO offers. They are famous for their AR-based .300 Win-Mag, which has minimal recoil and can reach out to targets more than 1,000-yards away accurately.

This truck is one bad mother, and to get the point across, the exterior was toughened up with a few styling cues. This includes the rugged bumpers custom made by Tough Country and the numerous Plashlight LED lights that were wired by Ryan Parma and Aaron Dun- way to lead the way in the dark and offer target sighting for nighttime shooting. Fin- ishing it off is a ﬂat black paint job that was laid down by Matt Hutcheson Designs, who then airbrushed the logos and Second Amend- ment sayings throughout. In its complete form it has al- ready made a big impression at both the SEMA show and SHOT show, and now it’s on the road for many other events. Not only does it have the look, but the NEMO Bat- tlewagon is also ready for a serious throwdown. Let’s just hope no liberals get in its way.

Clint would like to thank Jeff Davy and his crew at De- vious Customs and also all of the brothers and sisters serv- ing at the tip of the spear that give up their freedoms so that we may sleep peacefully at night. DW