Most custom trucks on the road today started with a dream and a stock pickup begging to be set flat on the ground and smoothed from grille to tailgate. As we flex our creative muscle on sheet metal that drive to take a project further always lingers in our subconscious. Andrew Merkel of Webster, New York, is a custom truck fanatic at heart, and built the metallic blue, body-dropped S-10 laid flat out across these pages as a way to shout his best tune into the custom truck microphone. We heard you, Andrew, and toss a king-sized thumb in the air for this little blue jewel that puts chins on the pavement in Upstate New York.
Although Tom Counts of Yuma, Arizona, has only had his Dodge Durango for less than a year he has put plenty of work into it. The 4.7L Dodge powerplant has been upgraded with a Jet Performance Chip, throttle body spacer and K&N cold air intake as well as a Flowmaster exhaust. After cranking up the torsion bars a couple of inches he installed a set of BF Goodrich rugged trail 285/70 and 17-inch forged aluminum racing wheels. To make sure that no one thought this SUV was just another grocery getter, Tom painted on the silver racing stripe and billet grille. Future plans include a set of headers and a programmer when it’s available.
