Truck Features
- February 21, 2012
Trading a pontoon boat for a ’99 379 Pete turned out to be a better deal than Paul Voigt ever imagined – a Pride & Polish National Championship
By Bruce W. Smith
From a distance, Night Train Trucking owner Paul Voigt’s flattop ’99 Peterbilt looks like a nicely done black-and-blue reefer combo. The visor is big and low, the paint is slick, the stacks tall, and the trailer is painted and trimmed in mirrored stainless to match.
In the daytime the color, chrome ...
- February 19, 2012
Demolition work doesn’t keep the Lindamoods from refashioning an award winner repeatedly
By Max Kvidera
Most truck customizers aren’t satisfied with a one-time pass at performing their magic. They keep finding new ways to transform their vehicles.
Such is the case with Jake Lindamood and his 2007 Peterbilt 379. Lindamood and the crew at Lindamood Demolition in Irving, Texas, customized the truck when it was new, anda year after running the truck in their demolition operation, they stripped itapart and rebuilt it again.. ...
- February 15, 2012
Jeremy Leavitt’s big red 379 does double duty as a hay hauler and show rig
By Max Kvidera
Almost from the day he bought the 2005 Pete 379, Jeremy Leavitt began customizing the truck. He had added touches here and there to previous trucks he owned but nothing like this one. “We’ve always had nice equipment, but I wanted to build a fancier truck that could work but still be taken to the shows,” he says.
In 2006 Leavitt spent more than five ...
- February 15, 2012
Editor's note: This story originally ran in the Summer 2009 issue of Custom Rigs.
Illinois hauler Matt ‘Bad Company’ Kolb extends long customizing history with ‘Trick My Truck’ build-out of his 1988 Pete
By Todd Dills
When Carlyle, Illinois, owner-operator Matt Kolb was interviewed by CMT’s “Truck My Truck” producers in 2008, he brought with him not only his own brand of sharp sarcasm and road-worthy wit but a piece of his own history.
His fiancée, Cindy Brown, brought the producers a copy of ...
- February 13, 2012
Boots Chivington’s show-winning W900L honors his work in oil fields and memorializes his son
By James Jaillet
(Photos by Bruce W. Smith)
Boots Chivington’s son Cub had a wild imagination, and he never hesitated to pencil out any ideas it bred. Cub fancied the atypical, and he was “always drawing up wild stuff – ideas for trucks he liked, things he wanted to do to one,” Chivington says.
When Chivington started assembling the pieces of what would later become an award-winning, big black KW ...
- February 10, 2012
California all-star customizer Jeff Botelho’s show truck and working rig, 5150, inspired by grief of father’s passing
by Todd Dills
“Up until recently,” says Jeff Botelho, customizing trucks was more a highly advanced hobby than anything else for himself and crew at the Botelho’s Custom Trucks shop in Los Banos, Calif.
He runs his family’s Botelho Bros. Trucking business and custom shop out of the same facility, from which the shop’s unofficial name, Tin Can Customs, comes.
“My shop’s kind of like a tin ...
- February 08, 2012
A game of one-inch-upsmanship between two longtime friends results in one rocking work-in-progress
By Todd Dills
Truck names come from a host of different origins – the occupation of the owner-operator, remembrance of a loved one, a favorite color, a movie hero or any number of other reasons. Two very custom rigs on the circuit take a different tack, getting their moniker from the wheelbase: Project 350 and Project 351. The latter takes its name from something of a challenge.
After Richie Acosta ...
- February 06, 2012
Travis Lyon’s 1987 Kenworth K100E brings the demented Decepticon Motormaster from comic book ink to real-world form.
by James Jaillet
By his own admission, Travis Lyon was “a man in need of a project,” and on a long drive down Tennessee highways “to just get out and clear my head,” he stumbled upon an old junkyard ’87 model Kenworth K100E Aerodyne that, several years before, he wanted to buy and turn into an actuality based on comics and cartoons he revered as ...
- February 03, 2012
One of the most wicked ash haulers on the road is a rare 2005 Peterbilt 379X called Haulin’ Ash, owned by Burningham Enterprises of American Fork, Utah, located about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City.
- February 01, 2012
SRS National fleet owner and part-operator Jerry Beaudoin drives his company's calling card
By Todd Dills
Many big-rig customizers back their way into building a dream truck. After years of on-road hauling, all the while slowly acquiring the technical know-how to take a working tractor and turn it into a project truck, they hot-rod an old family workhorse or turning a junkyard find into a machine that gleams like new.
Jerry Beaudoin, owner of the Southington, Conn.-based SRS National fleet of 10 company-owned ...
Feature Stories About Customized Trucks
We cover the coolest trucks, their awesome owners, and the people that do some of the greatest custom work in America. What you’ll find online will be some incredible stories and pictures of rigs that we’ve chosen to spotlight. If you’re looking for even more feature coverage, check out a Custom Rigs Magazine subscription – it’s only $19.95 for a 1 year subscription and that gets you 4 full issues. If you really want a deal, a 2 year subscription is only $29.95 and that gets you 8 full issues AND a FREE CustomRigs t-shirt!
