Steve Ortner, of Belleville, Michigan always wanted a Hummer. When he finally got the chance to buy a ’94 civilian-spec Hummer H1, he was ecstatic. But there was a problem. “The Hummer had a naturally aspirated 6.2L engine, and it was so, so slow,” Ortner exclaimed. “There were times on hills when I was unsure if it would make it up to the speed limit!” He definitely had the vehicle he’d always wanted—but it was powered by the wrong engine.
When you’re a horsepower junkie but don’t want to sacrifice the reliability of your $70,000 daily driver, what do you do? You buy a second truck and throw all restraint out the window. This is the path to four-digit power Chad Flynn took with his ’08 F-250, a former plow truck from Cleveland. In the diesel game since the early 2000s, Chad knows as well as anyone that there is a point of no return when modifying your primary means of transportation.
Chris Begley of Riverside, California, has been building custom off-road machines for more than two decades. A welder by trade, his fab shop Luxury Prerunners builds high-end offroad rigs that bring together form and function. While most would expect him to build a late-model prerunner stuffed full of modern creature comforts and the latest technology, for his personal vehicle, Begley went retro, overhauling a 1990 Dodge Ram D250 Cummins 4×4 from the ground up.
In a day and age where it seems like just about everything has a little extra to go along with it, a vehicle that is purpose-built and sticks to the basics is a welcome change of pace. To be clear, we’re a fan of properly placed bells and whistles as much as anyone since we built our community on the bells and whistles attached to custom trucks. So when we say that a build “sticks to the basics” or avoids being easily labeled as “extra,” in no way, shape, or form does that exclude the same build from being extremely stylish.
This 2012 Chevy Silverado started life as does thousands of hard working trucks in America until it was involved in a horrific encounter with a concrete wall, completely destroying the truck in the process. After the accident, Ryan Hillman, the manager at the shop arranged for its purchase with the idea of building a unique custom ride as a showpiece of the shop’s abilities.
If you’re in the business of producing automotive products, you know that advertising in motorsports serves as one of the best ways to build name recognition. Things get even better when your mobile billboard finishes in the winner’s circle. As the owner of Angry Farmer Products, Todd Dugan chose to promote his company’s new penetrating spray by campaigning a truck in the Super Stock class.
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