icionado turns a basket-case Pete into a stretched slammer

By Bruce Smith

Juan Carlos Ibarra isn’t a trucker. He’s a property manager who lives and breathes custom cars and pickups.

The Miami entrepreneur’s passion for customizing started before he was old enough to drive, and his love of cars was so strong he quit school at 16 to work in an auto accessory store. During the ensuing years he moved on to work at customizing shops and automotive accessory wholesalers before moving to real estate five years ago.

Today, he owns a lucrative property management company with several South Florida properties including a strip mall, shopping center and a warehouse complex. The latter is where he parks some of his most prized possessions, including a ’65 AC Cobra, ’62 Bel Air Hardtop Sport Coupe (Bubble Top) and a ’53 Ford F-100.

One custom vehicle, however, overshadows them all – Ibarra’s latest build – Road Hawg, a stretched-and-slammed 1989 Peterbilt 379.

“I didn’t know anything about customized semis until I picked up an issue of Custom Rigs in March of 2008,” he says. “When I opened the magazine, I thought, ‘Wow, these things are crazy!’ Then I saw a picture of Ritchie Acosta’s truck. I knew right then I had to build a stretched semi truck.”

A few weeks later he was the proud owner of an ’89 Pete that was in pieces. By November it rolled into its first truck show, a National Association of Show Trucks (NAST) event, taking multiple awards. He did more work on it, and earlier this year, the paint still fresh, he showed it at the 75 Chrome Shop Pride & Polish truck beauty show in Wildwood, Fla. That’s where the 355-in.-wheelbase Limited Mileage entry caught our eye.

“My take on customizing is less is more,” says Ibarra of the Road Hawg’s overall look. “I wanted the Road Hawg to be long, low and clean, with a Harley-Davidson motif. But it also had to have a few special touches, such as the painted-and-pinstriped wheels, dimples on the rims, leather floor covers and LEDs in the visor.”

Ibarra says Road Hawg is his first attempt building a customized big rig. It was a learning experience, and he’ll do things “a little different” on the next one, which he promises “will really kick this one’s butt.”

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Spec’s

Truck Name: Road Hawg

Make/Model: 1989 Peterbilt 379

Owner: Juan Carlos Ibarra

Company: Ibarra Property Management

Primary Use: Show Truck

Primary Customizer: Juan Carlos Ibarra

Pride & Polish Honors: Limited Mileage-Best Interior (1^st) & Limited Mileage Best of Show (3^rd) / 2010 75 Chrome Shop

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Miami car aficionado turns a basket-case Pete into a stretched slammer
By Bruce Smith
Juan Carlos Ibarra isn’t a trucker. He’s a property manager who lives and breathes custom cars and pickups.
The Miami entrepreneur’s passion for customizing started before he was old enough to drive, and his love of cars was so strong he quit school at 16 to work in an auto accessory store. During the ensuing years he moved on to work at customizing shops and automotive accessory wholesalers before moving to real estate five years ago.
Today, he owns a lucrative property management company with several South Florida properties including a strip mall, shopping center and a warehouse complex. The latter is where he parks some of his most prized possessions, including a ’65 AC Cobra, ’62 Bel Air Hardtop Sport Coupe (Bubble Top) and a ’53 Ford F-100.
One custom vehicle, however, overshadows them all – Ibarra’s latest build – Road Hawg, a stretched-and-slammed 1989 Peterbilt 379.
“I didn’t know anything about customized semis until I picked up an issue of Custom Rigs in March of 2008,” he says. “When I opened the magazine, I thought, ‘Wow, these things are crazy!’ Then I saw a picture of Ritchie Acosta’s truck. I knew right then I had to build a stretched semi truck.”
A few weeks later he was the proud owner of an ’89 Pete that was in pieces. By November it rolled into its first truck show, a National Association of Show Trucks (NAST) event, taking multiple awards. He did more work on it, and earlier this year, the paint still fresh, he showed it at the 75 Chrome Shop Pride & Polish truck beauty show in Wildwood, Fla. That’s where the 355-in.-wheelbase Limited Mileage entry caught our eye.
“My take on customizing is less is more,” says Ibarra of the Road Hawg’s overall look. “I wanted the Road Hawg to be long, low and clean, with a Harley-Davidson motif. But it also had to have a few special touches, such as the painted-and-pinstriped wheels, dimples on the rims, leather floor covers and LEDs in the visor.”
Ibarra says Road Hawg is his first attempt building a customized big rig. It was a learning experience, and he’ll do things “a little different” on the next one, which he promises “will really kick this one’s butt.”

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After four years of painstaking work, Scott Diller’s 1981 KW has a new lease on life

by Max Kvidera

To say Scott Diller will go to extremes to get the look he wants

in his show truck is an understatement.

From the time he rescued a 1981 Kenworth W900A that was destined for the junkyard until he rolled it into a Louisville, Ky., competition in 2011, nearly four years passed. Much of that time was spent bending and shaping the 30-year-old rig. The recession slowed things down, too.

Starting with the truck’s cab structure, doors and not much else, the crew at Elizabeth Truck Center in Staten Island, N.Y., took Diller’s vision (given an assist by friend and artist Jeff Nolt) and transformed the truck into a 2011 prizewinner. New hood, frame rails, engine and wiring to accommodate today’s electronic engine modules were installed.

The New York shop customized most of the rest.

“I’m not really a purist but at the same time I wanted a hot rod-themed truck,” he says of that vision. “I wanted to have a 1930s or ’40s street rod feel to it. I saved a truck from the scrap pile.”

But Diller wanted to make changes. He wanted to lengthen the frame rails, exchange the old truck’s short hood for a long hood, re-skin all the metal because he didn’t want to have rust and corrosion problems from driving on Northeast roads.

“I could buy this truck for a song because it was junk and it had a good title, plus it had the valuable things I wanted without junking it,” he explains. “It’s a good feeling when you start with nothing and it ends up looking like it does now.”

Diller, 28, began dispatching and driving for the family trucking business, Lanita Transport of Mt. Aetna, Pa., in 2000. When his father, Larry, decided to return to driving two years ago, Scott began running the operation, which numbers about 15 company rigs and 20 owner-operator trucks. This move gave him time to monitor the modifications.

At the beginning, Diller told Anthony Pesce of ETC what he wanted and didn’t want. “Couple of things I gave him free rein on,” Diller says. “For the interior I wanted a street rod look with a metal dash that flowed together with the exterior. I took them a remanufactured Cat motor and they wired it.”

Outside, Diller wanted the truck to hug the highway. He got blank frame rails from PG Adams in Vermont and turned them over to the truck shop.

“I wanted it to sit as low as possible, so we mounted the suspension components as high as possible on the frame and the cab components as low as possible,” he says. “Compared with a stock W900A, the top of the roof line is 14 in. lower. When all of the air is released from the air-ride, the front bumper is a half-inch off the ground.”

Fabricating parts took time, too. Diller says sometimes it took more than one attempt at building a part before getting the look he wanted. “Just my dash took three and a half weeks to build,” he says. “This is the fourth one they roughed out.”

To get the smooth exterior look Diller wanted, the back panel on the sleeper was glued together with a super strong adhesive instead of rivets. Detail work, such as cutting 3.5 in. out of the stock Kenworth sun visor to allow it to lay closer to the windshield, followed. Where possible, other Kenworth components were used and modified.

At least one and often many more ETC employees worked on Diller’s masterpiece during its four-year stay at the shop. Diller explains that the truck was “built in the rough,” with everything assembled to make sure all components fit precisely. Then the truck was taken apart and the parts painted.

Diller had dabbled in show trucks – fancy paint job and modified exhaust stacks –a couple of times previously, but nothing like this. Now that he has the truck he likes, he doesn’t expect to show it nearly as often in 2012 as he did last year, toting the rig to more than 10 shows, including several in the Pride & Polish circuit.

“I went off the deep end with this I guess,” Diller says.

[View with PicLens]

Spec’s:

Truck: 1981 Kenworth W900A

Engine: 550 hp Cat

Transmission: 13-speed

Wheelbase: 299 in

Wheels: 24.5; Michelin 285/75R24.5 tires

Exterior mods: Dynaflex stacks, Valley Chrome front bumper, 12 Gauge front end air-ride kits, PDI-tuned engine, extended Trux rear fenders, Kenworth grille bars

Interior mods: Customized metal dash, door panels, headliner; upholstery and metal floor; moved truck and trailer switches to metal box between driver and passenger seats; TelTek digital gauges

Welding shop o

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wner showing strong at Custom Rigs Pride & Polish with’75 daycab Pete.

Story and photos by Todd Dills

Wade Wardlaw’s signature, which he puts on all his work for logging contractors and others in his East Texas hometown, on the driver side rear fender.

Welding shop owner Wade Wardlaw of Woodville, Texas, had his first experience of the Great American Trucking Show in 2007, when he attended as a spectator. At the time, the hardworking 1975 Peterbilt 359 you see in the picture above was to the naked eye more like something you’d see in a junkyard.

It worked fine for what he needed it for,

Wardlaw says, but after walking through the Custom Rigs Pride & Polish truck beauty competition area, “a friend of mine at that first show talked me into it,” he says of the six months’ work he then put into the 359.

It was a total transformation of the yard truck into a slickly restored beauty. In only his second year in the Pride & Polish competition in 2009, he bagged First Place in the Antique class. This year, with hopped-up competition among a record number of entries, the 359 finished second, no less disappointing for the extra undercarriage polishing work he put into it.

Mounted to the back of the truck is a mammoth 80-ton Tulsa winch, originally used to lift a non-detachable-gooseneck equipment trailer from the fifth wheel in the original owner’s operation. The logging contractor had used the truck primarily to tote his heavy equipment around.

Much of the work Wardlaw put into the truck was in the way of cleaning, repainting and polishing, as he tells it. “I put new hinges on the doors,” he says, and fixed the hood for normal operation – prior to modification, he needed a team of mean to get it up and down.

He drew on his welding expertise in forming the black-painted diamond-plate rear fenders and other one-off custom touches. Aside from cleaning and replacing an injector, “I haven’t done anything to the engine,” he says. “Before the original owner retired it, he had it overhauled – it’s only got about 20,000 miles on the overhaul.”

And that mammoth steering wheel, well, he needs it. Aside from an hydraulic assist, the old beauty has no power steering. “It’s a workout to drive it,” Wardlaw says. All the same, he loves doing so. With the Great American Trucking Show just one of a few opportunities for such, you can bet on getting a chance to see it in Dallas again next year.

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Jersey’s Elizabeth Truck Center-led builders weave the hottest mods into an ’08 International ProStar for some truly twisted results

By Bruce W. Smith

(Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Truck Cent

er)

Jersey isn’t the first place one would think of being a hotbed for customizing trucks. Gangsters ripping them off and hijacking their loads? Sure. But truck dealerships ripping a new rig apart and transforming what was once ordinary into an extraordinary work of rolling artisanship and craftsmanship? Fuhgetaboutit.

Such misconceptions are quickly dispelled the moment one lays eyes on Mayhem, James Carello’s totally tricked-out ’08 International ProStar.

Carello, the man behind Regional International in Henrietta, New York, wanted a showpiece rig for the corporation. It had to be aerodynamic and fuel-efficient, exude high-tech thinking and turn heads. The ProStar was the perfect base truck – and New Jersey’s Elizabeth Truck Center, custom paint maker House of Kolor, and Cenzi Custom Cycles of Spencerport, New York, the perfect customizing partners.

Together they have created what may be one of the most eye-catching aerodynamic custom rigs on the road.

First off, Mayhem’s frame was stretched from 220 inches to 340, topped off with a one-piece stainless deck plate while the rear of frame was filled and a custom rear light bar fabricated. While the craftsmen at ETC were at it, they flipped every huck bolt so the frame rails looked clean, shortened the hood, and dropped on a custom sleeper.

Not satisfied with the ordinary, they took a few cues from car customizers, adding lengthened Lamborghini-style gull-wing doors, converting the single exhaust to duals, adding custom fairings all around, and building a one-off visor and fifth wheel.

Then they had a friend CNC Mayhem’s Alcoa wheels on his machine for an even cooler look, complemented by Firestone 285/75R24.5s and one-off fenders by Cool Truck Components.

No custom rig is complete without something special on the inside. Mayhem boasts a totally custom interior, including a wraparound couch in the sleeper, but it’s the killer sound system that impresses most.

It’s anchored by a Kenwood head unit dumping into a 6,000-watt Kicker system consisting of no less than four 12-inch subs (beneath the couch), perfectly tuned to eight speakers all in custom enclosures.

Of course, both cab and sleeper are wrapped in Dynamat sound-deadening insulation.

When it’s time to watch videos, Carello has his choice of sitting back and enjoying a 37-inch flat-panel HD in the back, a seven-inch LCD in the dash or a 12-inch above — all tied in to Mayhem’s sound system.

To top off all the custom work, Tony Cenzi of Cenzi Custom Cycles traveled to ETC’s paint shop to put his extraordinary motorcycle painting talents to work on a much larger canvas. Using House of Kolor paints, they turned the bland ProStar into a kaleidoscope of color.

But the painting didn’t go quite as planned. According Carello’s son Jason, who is Mayhem’s handler, and Anthony Pesce, the head of customizing at ETC, this is the step leading to the truck’s name.

“It seems nothing went to plan building the truck,” says the younger Carello. “The paint job wasn’t cooperating and things overall were not going smooth as we rushed to get it completed before the 2008 Mid-America Truck Show. So in the end we named it Mayhem because that’s exactly what it was around the ETC shop.”

Mayhem made a minor debut at the International exhibit next to the Overdrive Pride and Polish lot at Mid-America last year, but its show-truck grand entrance came three months later at the Pride and Polish at the Great West Truck Show in Las Vegas. To no one’s surprise, it cleaned up, taking First in Limited Mileage Paint Bobtail, tying for First in Limited Mileage Interior, and taking Second overall in Limited Mileage Bobtail.

Word has it Mayhem’s newest role will be hauling a brand new International LoneStar to shows later this year. – CR

(For in-depth images of the ETC build in-progress, click here.)

[View with PicLens]

Spec’s:

TRUCK NAME: Mayhem

OWNER: James Carello, Henrietta, New York

MODEL: ’08 International ProStar

BUILT BY: Regional International & Elizabeth Truck Center

ENGINE: 525-hp Cummins ISX; painted; custom 8-inch dual exhaust

TRANSMISSION: Eaton Fuller RTLO18913

SUSPENSION: Factory air front/rear

PAINT/GRAPHICS: House of Kolor products; Graphics by Tony Cenzi, Cenzi Custom Cycles; Paint by Elizabeth Truck Center

INTERIOR MODS: Full custom with wraparound sofa in sleeper; 6,000W 12-speaker Kenwood/Kicker sound system; 37-in. flat screen; multiple DVD screens; sound deadening throughout

EXTERIOR MODS: Shortened hood; tandem front/rear light bars; one-off skirts and fenders; 340-inch stretched wheelbase; frame filled

and hucks reversed; custom fifth wheel; extended Lamborghini doors; custom visor and rear panel; CNC’d Alcoa wheels; much more

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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 straight and tractor-trailer dumps specializing in contaminated soil removal, did the opposite.

He built his business to back up “my disease for chrome,” as he jokingly calls his customizing obsession.

How does he do it? As his latest custom creation, a 2007 Peterbilt 379 he calls Triple One, shows it takes dedication. Beaudoin specs a new truck, ordering very little in the way of finish.

“We usually order them with customizing in mind,” he says. “We order our trucks with no visors, no chrome, and just basic paint. Then we take them apart—right down to nothing.”

The work on this SRS National’s latest creation then proceeded over a four-month period, focused on what Beaudoin calls a guiding vision of creating a long, low and clean, seamless design from front to back. Inside, too.

The cab is unadorned with any kind of panel trim, the smooth-paneled doors painted to match the striping on the exterior. That paint job, finished with “three or four” layers of clear coat for a no-edges finish over the stripes, was laid on by New Haven Truck and Auto Body, whom Beaudoin and company rely on for paint and some body work.

Otherwise, “My shop team is me and three or four drivers who like to do the same thing.” They perform the rest of the work totally in-house.

Among special features unique to the Triple One build is the team’s successful engineering of a blind-mount arrangement (under the custom deck plate) for the hydraulic hose that feeds the dump trailers it hauls from cleanup sites.

“I’ve seen guys try to do that,” says Beaudoin, but turning and dumping then typically become problematic. “I figured out a way to do it so the hydraulic hose stays on the truck and you can turn and dump with it. Once you figure it out and look at it, it’s pretty simple, really.”

“We get approached quite a bit to build trucks for people, which we do from time to time” the 38-year-old Beaudoin says. “I’m not set up to do it as a business, per say, but this may be a platform to get to that point someday, when I’m tired of dealing with chasing work.”

In any case, Beaudoin certainly has the know-how. Watch for more custom rigs chsoing up from him in the near future.

He and fellow Connecticut customizer and friend Todd Roccapriore, big winner with his Chopped ’93 Peterbilt 379 at MATS, Shell SuperRigs and 75 Chrome Shop shows last year, are reportedly working on a new build to debut at the Louisville Pride & Polish this month.

“It’s Todd’s truck,” the SRS owner says. “He’s doing a majority of the fab work. I’m helping with the ideas. It’s going to be pretty wild.”

Spec’s:

Owner: SRS National/Jerry Beaudoin, Southington, Conn.

Model: 2007 Peterbilt 379

Engine: 565-hp Cummins ISX

Transmission: 18-speed Eaton Fuller

Interior mods: low-base leather seats; twin-stick shifters; custom-built aluminum flat panels; interior stripes painted to match the exterior; painted dash; stainless steel headliner and floor; solid chrome steering wheel

Exterior mods: suicide doors; removed door handles, cab lights, horns and emblems; automatic hood opener; painted and chromed motor; blacked out grill; remote control-operated, bumper-mounted revolving headlights

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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, customizi

ng 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 can,” say Botelho who has won his share of Custom Rigs Pride & Polish and other truck show awards over the years. “It’s definitely no 4 States – it’s a small shop with three fulltime employees, and most people can’t believe we turn the equipment out of the little facility that we do.”

Big-Rig Build-Off contenders are among the shop’s repertoire, but perhaps the most meaningful piece Botelho and his crew have built is his personal working rig.

The workhorse 2007 Peterbilt 379 had fewer than 35,000 miles on it when Botelho lost a man he says had been “my business partner and my best friend” for a decade and more – his father, Jim.

“I used to see him in the shop every day,” Botelho says. “I was down for three months when he passed. I’d fire my truck up and go in the shop and cry for 20 minutes. One morning I went into the shop and my truck was getting a service – it was a mess at 7:30 a.m., and so was I.”

He turned to his shop guys and told them to halt work on it. Then he proceeded to outline to them what he wanted to do.

The next day, the truck’s interior was near gutted when Botelho’s current business partner, his mother, Alvina, walked in. “She was livid,” Botelho says. “The truck was 10 months old with 35,000 miles on it and there I’ve got it gutted and in pieces – I said, ‘Go ahead and tell me I’m stupid like dad did.’”

Botelho describes his father as a quite opinionated truck owner whose idea of a perfect truck was one with a “clean, old-school, simple” design.

In stark contrast, Botelho’s ideas have run counter to that style over the years – his 2006 Big-Rig Build-Off entry was a convertible Class 8 he’d dreamed of building as a child, and last year his entry was a big-rig limo.

Botelho convinced his mother to devote $10,000 to what became his personal project truck, his way of dealing with his father’s death.

“You’ve got 60 days,” she told him.

What emerged from the encounter with his mother is a bad-ass, flame-throwing custom rig inspired directly by an emotion that seems somewhat out of sync with the rig’s design – grief.

Botelho and his crew – then made up of John Shamoro and Francisco Murrillo, both of whom remain with the shop – built a rear roll-down power window into the 36-inch sleeper and custom-fabricated sheet-metal flooring and door panels.

Then they went to work ovehauling the interior for maximum sound entertainment with the addition of a 2,800-watt Pioneer head unit

thumping through 18 Image Dynamics speakers in custom enclosures.

The exterior and interior design scheme is united by unique flame-design vinyl graphics, expertly cut and installed by Botelho’s “big brother,” also named Jim, four years his senior, and Jim’s crew at 100 Proof Ink.

There are very few custom rigs on the road similar to Tin Can Custom’s creation called “5150.” It’s look and custom touches have resulted in a number of wins at competitive events around the country – including second in its class and third for its custom paint and graphics at the 2009 Great West Truck Show Custom RigsPride & Polish in Vegas.

But it’s a day-to-day worker more than anything else, says Botelho. It primarily runs locally, pulling a stainless-steel spread-axle reefer or a flatbed.

“It’s also set up with a hydraulic equipment trailer” on occasion, says Botelho, to move large equipment for a local towing company. “It’s not really set up to do that,” he adds, “but it pays good, so I do it.”

The truck’s low mileage has occasionally caused problems registering at some truck shows, where judges often question which class it should be competing in – working class or the limited-mileage show trucks.

“I have to prove I run it local sometimes,” Botelho says. “It’s harder on the truck when you’re running local. I could work a ten-hour day and put 100 miles on it that put it into situations with plenty opportunity for nicks, scrapes and bumps for the pristine graphics and custom chrome and stainless accents.”

All told, Botelho’s happy with the result. The long hours and work he, his crew and some of his trucking company’s drivers put into its build was the “perfect therapy” for the grief he felt at his father’s death.

As Botelho puts it, the 379 was “my own last little ‘Hey, Daddy, look at what I can do.’”

[View with PicLens]

Spec’s

Truck Name: 5150

Owner: Jeff Botelho, Los Banos, Calif.

Model: 2007 Peterbilt 379 extended hood

Engine: 475-hp Caterpillar with Performance Diesel tuning to 980 hp

Transmission: Eaton Fuller 18 speed

Exterior mods: Power roll-down rear sleeper window, custom vinyl graphics by 100 Proof Ink, custom stainless bumper, 8-inch Dynaflex stacks, stainless accents the length of the rig by Aranda Truck Accessories

Interior mods: Custom sheet metal floor and door panels, vinyl dash and panel graphics by 100 Proof Ink, 2800-watt Pioneer head unit with satellite radio and iPod plug, 18 Image Dynamics speakers, ranging from 10- to 60-inch mids and numerous tweeters.

By Bruce W. Smith

As quarry owner Lloyd Tausch rolled his big Cat 988F wheel loader toward the waiting dump trailer he subconsciously made an effort to be a little gentler depositing the

ten tons of granite filling the bucket. He eased up to within a few feet of the waiting truck, rolled the bucket forward, and dropped the load perfectly.

“It’s pretty much what happens whether I’m at a quarry or unloading at the jobsite,” says owner Henry “Hank” Hall, sitting in the alligator-and-ostrich-skin upholstered driver’s seat of his black-on-black, customized ’04 Peterbilt 379 called Vamonos. “When you roll in with a nice looking rig like this, everyone around seems to give you a little more respect.”

Hall, owner of Hall’s Trucking of Texas, is one of the San Antonio trucking clan who has more than 200 trucks between their three companies hauling primarily aggregates, topsoil and contaminants in South Texas.

All of his trucks are really nice, but his customized black Pete, a common sight on I-10 between San Antonio and Port Arthur, Texas, and along the I-410 Loop, is the pride ride.

“We eat, sleep, and breathe trucking in our family,” explains Hall. “My brother, Bill, and cousin Bill Hall Jr. and me are always fighting it out during the week to get bids. We’re very, very competitive when it comes to our businesses,” says Hank, whose dad, Frank, started the family trucking company back in the early 1960s. “But on the weekends, we’re family.”

Or at least on weekends when there’s not a truck beauty show. Hank likes to win, as you can tell just by looking at Vamonos, the coolest of his fleet of 30-plus Petes.

Vamonos sports a sleeper chopped seven inches and suicide doors with one-piece windows. It also runs chopped air cans and CNC-machined “Vamonos” badges done by Franko Guerrero at Frankos Custom Cycles.

San Antonio-based Triple R Diesel, which handled the build, set Hank’s truck up with 12ga Customs mirror brackets, Fibertech fenders, a custom billet grill and Aranda stainless front bumper with flip-kit. They changed out the headlights and custom-made extended cab panels to accentuate the chopped look.

Triple R’s Steve Cervante shot the entire truck and Clements dump trailer with DuPont ChromaBase Jet-black, airbrushed on the logos and cleared it all with five coats to give the liquid shine.

Eight-inch Lincoln stacks, a drop suspension, polished Alcoas all around, United Pacific headlights and LED running lights, stainless trailer boards, and a tasteful sprinkling of stainless and chrome here and there finish off the exterior.

Hank owns “60 pair of boots, most of them ostrich skin.” So it’s not a surprise to see the seats and door panels sporting a lot of ostrich/alligator hide, while the floor, dash and steering wheel are marbleized and clear-coated. The dash also sports a lot of chrome purchased through the Texas Chrome Shop.

Of course, you can’t have a truck named Vamonos, or an owner who says the word a 100 times a day, without having something under the hood for the get-up-and-go.

Vamonos’ C15 Cat is far from stock. The 550-hp power plant’s turbo, injectors, manifold, and ECU were upgraded by the local Cat dealer with much healthier components, “upping the horsepower somewhere north of 650,” says Hank with a wink. “Like I said, we’re a pretty competitive family and I really don’t like to lose.”

Speaking of winning, Hank took First in Interior during last

year’s Pride & Polish at the Great American Trucking Show (GATS) in Dallas, and Thirds in the Mobile Delvac Working Class Engine and Specialized Combo working truck classes.

Not bad. But not good enough as far as Mr. Vamonos is concerned — or his 18-year-old son, Hank Jr., who is being handed the keys to company’s working jewel.

“When we show up at GATS this year the truck is going to get a lot more attention,” Hank warns his competitors. “I’m having Triple R Diesel pull the engine for a complete custom makeover and we’re re-doing the entire interior from dash to the back wall of the sleeper. It’s going to be really special for a working class rig. You wait and see.”

[View with PicLens]

Spec’s:

Truck Name: Vamonos

Make/Model: 2004 Peterbilt 379

Owner: Henry “Hank” Hall

Company: Hall’s Trucking of Texas, Von Ormy, Texas

Primary Use: Hauling rock, sand and gravel

Primary Customizer: Triple R Diesel, San Antonio, Texas

[View with PicLens]

Texan Michael Briseno never backs down from a heavy haul

By Bruce W. Smith

When the need for a heavy haul comes in from customers, several

rigs in the Lindamood Demolition trucking fleet can answer the call. More times than not it’ll be veteran driver Michael Briseno rolling in behind the wheel of Over the Top – a bright-blue tri-axle ’06 Pete powered by a 625 Cat.

The jobs are as varied as the clients, with loads being anything from big excavators and dozers to cranes and drilling rigs.

But the most challenging haul happened two weeks before the 2009 Great American Truck Show (GATS) in Dallas when Briseno found himself in Fort Valley, Georgia, his trailer burdened under the weight of a 10-foot wide, 16-foot high Cooper-Bessemer V-16 weighing 213,000 pounds.

“It was the heaviest load I’ve ever hauled,” recounts Briseno. “The whole time I was traveling down the road with that 135-foot-long trailer my knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so tight. I didn’t get 40 miles before the trailer blew out the first tire, so immediately I thought, ‘Oh, no, this is going to be a really long trip.’ ”

Three days later, he’d driven Over the Top and its monster load to the customer in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, where it was off-loaded and sent on its way to power a dredge.

“When I finally got unloaded and headed back to Texas on I-10, I looked up at the sky and said, ‘Thank you, Bobby Lindamood, for watching

over me and letting me deliver this load safely.’ I know he would have been so proud.” Briseno’s guardian angle, who founded Lindamood Demolition, would have also been proud of the way Briseno showed his ’06 379 Peterbilt at GATS, winning First in the Working Bobtail class after having only a couple days to detail it from the last job.

The Pride & Polish award was well deserved. Briseno, Jake Lindamood, Drew Ethington, Benjamin Garcia, and other employees at the Irving, Texas-based Lindamood shop put in a lot of hours after work and on weekends over the last couple years customizing, painting and detailing the Galaxy Blue heavy hauler.

They slipped on a drop-air front suspension, hung Cool Components single-humps on the triples, added a 12 Ga. Customs 22-inch flip bumper, built the steel deckplate and slipped on the 8-inch Dynaflex stacks. Then they added 75 United Pacific LED lights and swapped out the factory headlights for Jones Performance models.

Larry Green at nearby Lone Star Trim handled the blue/grey upholstery work. Then the Lindamood crew finished off the interior with blue.

The last stop on the custom trail was Dalworth On The Boulevard’s audio shop, where they installed a modest 600-watt Memphis Audio sound system with twin 10-in. subs in the sleeper and an 8-inch in-dash video screen.

“The 625 Cat, two-speed rears and 18-speed Eaton make a nice combination,” says Briseno of his customized heavy hauler. “She looks and runs really sweet going down the road with a big load and the fourth axle hooked up.”

Spec’s:

TRUCK NAME: Over the Top

OWNER: Jake Lindamood/Lindamood Demolition

DRIVER: Michael Briseno

MODEL: 2006 Peterbilt 379 tri-axle

BUILT BY: Lindamood Demolition

ENGINE: Cat 625

TRANSMISSION: 18-speed Eaton Fuller

SUSPENSION: Drop-front air

PAINT/GRAPHICS: Paint by Benjamin Garcia; DuPont Galaxy Blue

INTERIOR: Custom upholstered seats; painted interior; Relative in Motion custom steering wheel; chrome toggles, knobs and trim; 600W Memphis Audio sound system with DVD player in dash

EXTERIOR: Six single Cool Components Fenders; hidden horns; custom deckplate, steps and tool boxes; 22-in. 12 Ga. Customs flip bumper; 9-in. cab panels; 8-in. Dynaflex stacks; Jones headlights on JJ brackets; painted engine and fuel tanks; LED lighting

Note: This story originally appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of Custom Rigs.

by Bruce W. Smith

Thirty years ago, before the young guns at Outlaw Customs were e

ven a gleam in their dad’s eyes, the classic Mad Max movie captured the imaginations of a generation. The plot was basically an old-fashioned shoot-‘em-up western set into a futuristic dystopian world with Australia being the stomping grounds for a ruthless gang of bikers bent on taking over a world falling into utter chaos.

What made the movie – and its ensuing sequels – so much fun were the vehicles. Junkyard dogs all. But those with slabs of steel for bodies and black/gray primer set the tone for the baddest ones of the lot.

Vigilante, Outlaw Custom’s 2000 model Peterbilt 379 extended hood entry into the Big-Rig Build-Off in Louisville in 2009, would have been Australia’s Main Force Patrol’s “Mad Max” Rockatansky’s kind of wheels: intimidating to the core.

“Matt Hesse, founder of CORR Jensen Labs: Revolution Lifestyle weight-loss system and the Training Day supplements popular among weight-lifters and professional athletes, wanted this truck to be flat black and grey to match his company colors,” says Andy Gobel, one of the founders of Outlaw Customs. “He wanted it to have an industrial ‘Mad Max’ look, which is where we came up with the Vigilante name. We wanted to take the law into our own hands and redefine the perception of what a truck should be, look like, and what was possible.”

John Lewis at PPG had their answer to the color: black and metal-flake silver PPG Delfleet paint covered with flat clear coat to give the satin finish. Greg Boarman and Ben Jackson from First Class Services flew in to Outlaw Custom’s shop to handle the custom paintwork. But a lot of customization had to take place before their final touches began.

Vigilante’s makeover began, at all places, with the scallop design on the hood sides. “Dave Jones, from Jones Performance, provided several different designs,” explains Alex Gobel, the younger brother and co-owner of Outlaw Customs, who, along with Nic Gillan (another Outlaw partner), designed the entire truck.

“When we decided on the final shape it helped to determine the styling on the rest of the parts we designed. When we build a truck at Outlaw Customs, it’s crucial for us to carry the same concept throughout all of our parts. And all of these on Vigilante were created here in house for a new line of Peterbilt aftermarket parts we have called ‘Afterworld,’ which are available right now.”

The exterior modifications include the Afterworld front bumper, visor, window trim, toolboxes, 10-in. cab and sleeper panels, fuel tank straps, sleeper shock cover, tri-pipe airlines, rear deck plate and Outlaw Customs’ signature truck gun exhaust tips.

They also used Tru-Balance wheel centering products, Jones Hoodlum front fenders, Headwinds Vampire 7-in. headlights, Cool Truck Components Duplex rear fenders and lights by Grand General to round out the industrial look.

Emblems milled from solid aluminum with “TD” (for the customer’s Training Day health supplements) logo put on the finishing touch. The theme is carried nicely into the interior via the style of another militaristic vehicle popular among four-wheelers: the H2 Hummer. “The owner wanted the truck to look like the inside of his Hummer H2 that goes to the trade shows with them,” says the younger Gobel. “The H2’s interior is a Sedona tan and black with brushed aluminum, so we followed the same concept throughout Vigilante’s interior.”

Larry and Jimmy Christenson of Empire Upholstery (dirt haulers by day, upholstery geniuses by night) in Denver masterminded the unique layout of the interior. It incorporates aluminum mesh in the doors and the headliner of the cab and sleeper and metal panels affixed with black pan-head bolts. Underneath it all is Hushmat’s sound-deadening material.

To stay true to the H2 interior, the duo wrapped all the cabinetry in the sleeper with the Sedona material and ran thick baseball stitching on the edges. They also re-upholstered the new National 2000 Series seats with plush Sedona suede. Outlaw Customs’ guys installed a nice mid-level Alpine head unit backed up with a half-dozen Eclipse speakers to cap it off. “Minimalist, but sounds great,” says Andy of the system.

There’s still more work left, including pulling the engine and giving it a Mad Max theme, as well as a few other additions. But for now, Vigilante has done its job.

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Spec’s:

Owner: Matt Hesse, CORR Jensen Labs: Revolution Lifestyle

Builder: Andy & Alex Gobel, Outlaw Customs

Model: 2000 Peterbilt 379

Engine: 475-hp Caterpillar C15

Transmission: RTLO 16715 Eaton Fuller.

Paint: PPG Delfleet Black/Metalflake Silver w/ F3906 clear with F3118 flattener

Interior mods: custom panels and upholstery throughout; powder-coated steel floor; scuffed aluminum dash w/ clear coat; Alpine/Eclipse sound system; National 2000 Series seats; Hushmat in cab and sleeper; RoaDawg billet steering wheel

Exterior mods: Custom “Afterworld” reverse-radius steps/tool/battery boxes, visor, mirror brackets, front/rear bumpers, shock box, and “scaled” deck plate; billet brackets for many parts; milled tips welded into tubing; custom paint by

First Class Services; custom hood scallops by Truck Rodz

By Christi Cowan

Small fleet owner and frac sand hauler Kenny Yeary’s 2010 Kenworth W900, which he bought new in March 2009, is the brainchild of his son Gary and son-in-la

w Jimmy Wiley, who convinced him to turn the stock rig into something different.

“You do what they want sometimes, you know,” Yeary says of keeping his family happy. Fortunately in this case, though he’s quick to point out that customizing trucks is not his line of work, he’s not unhappy with the way his truck turned out.

The family took their ideas to 4 State Trucks in Joplin, Mo., where the Chrome Shop Mafia executed ideas Gary and Wiley had sketched out.

Yeary, a Weatherford, Texas, resident, describes his truck as “plain and simple.” He says they took the modifications as far as they could while still keeping the truck true to its working roots. “We wanted something that looked nice but still looked like a truck, because it has to work daily,” says Yeary’s wife, Tuffy.

4 State used Imron paint to mirror the factory Seminole blue, black and yellow paint job. Yeary carried that theme over into the floor of the cab and into the sleeper. The dashboard and the steering wheel are painted to match, as is the deck plate.

There is no mistaking that the truck belongs to Yeary: Where most Kenworths have the manufacturer name on the glove box, Yeary’s name appears. He also has his initials in a light-up cutout on the bumper and painted onto the frame rail. Painted on the fifth wheel cover are his and his wife’s names.

On the back of the cab is the truck’s name, “The Untouchable.” It is also engraved onto the floor and under the sleeper door, and there are metal emblems on the sleeper that feature the moniker.

He says the name is more of a joke now than anything else, and that people like to touch the truck just to say they did. But he has been careful to preserve the truck’s clean look. “I haven’t scratched the floorboard or anything, and it’s worked out good for us,” he says.

Yeary says he did not add many lights because, as he puts it, “I ain’t too fond of lights,” but there is still plenty of illumination, including seven lights in the cab, two on each battery box, two behind the fuel tanks and six tail lights on the bumper.

The sleeper has a 21-in. flat-panel, high-def television with a DVD player. The black leather upholstery has chrome buttons and matches the inside door panels. They removed the old

seats and added low-mount swivel seats.

The GPS in the dash came standard, but Yeary added a foot bumper, a blower and frame skirts to cover the tandem. The original alterations took about two months, and Yeary slowly changed other parts after that. The chrome buttons in the sleeper, which he added a few at a time, took another two months.

Yeary hauls frac sand to gas wells in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas, but about 90 percent of his loads are in Texas.

Spec’s:

The Untouchable

Truck: 2010 Kenworth W900

Owner: Kenny Yeary

Wheelbase: 292 in

Engine: 600hp Cummins ISX

Transmission: Fuller RTO 20918B

Exterior mods: Added foot bumper, blower and frame skirts, truck’s name painted above added sliding glass window on back, Yeary’s initials in light-up formation on bumper

Interior mods: Paint job continued to floors, steering wheel and dash, chrome upholstery buttons on black leather in sleeper, name personalization on glove box, 21-in HD television in sleeper

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