Road Hawg
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.”
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 (1st) & Limited Mileage Best of Show (3rd) / 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.”
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 (1st) & Limited Mileage Best of Show (3rd) / 2010 75 Chrome Shop
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