dWRENCHED SPECIAL

Since I was a kid, besides bikes and hot rods I also loved trucks. Big trucks. Rarely I had to chance to see them live but the movies and the media in generaly did a great job making me addicted to'em. Yes, I'm talking about those Pete's, Mack's and so on, full of chrome, full of crazy paint jobs...full of life and history. Just another way to express the kustom kulture.

So it finally happened...I found a dWRENCHED truck to spoil my appetite ! I always hated convertibles, mainly cause of their gaysh flavour (and cause of the old bald heads driving them) but this convertible I LOVE !

Jeff Botelho has dreamed of building a convertible roadster truck since he was 15 years old. Over the 20 years since then, he has driven trucks, bought and sold trucks, ran the family trucking business, and learned how to visualize something and then create it with his own hands. When it comes to trucks and trucking, this guy has seen and done it all. So, when he was invited to participate in the Big-Rig Build-Off in Louisville, KY (an annual competition pitting truck builders against each other), he figured now was his chance to put all of his skills to use – and to finally build his convertible. But, as you can imagine, it was no easy task.
The "crazy" idea of building a convertible big rig came to Jeff and his brother Jim after a driver rolled one of their company-owned Petes on its side. Jeff was 15 and his brother was 18. They thought it would be cool to remove the wrecked sleeper, replace the hood, and chop the top off the cab. 

Jeff got a t-shirt that just happened to feature a chopped KW wide hood, sitting by the beach, with the top down and bikini-clad babes around it. He took one look at that shirt and decided he'd better build his dream before someone else does.

1998 Peterbilt. The cab comes from an wrecked 1991 Pete 377 . Chromed-out Cat 3116, tweaked to 300 hp. Cen Cal Creations did the interior as well as the mad paintjob.
4-link suspension and air bag system; lowrider style ! All of the pieces for the 4-link setup, including the brackets, rods and bushings, had to be hand-built. Low profile car tires...

Now that's a machine I would do some railing with... ( drag the frame on the ground to produces a light show of sparks while roling) !!!

Photo credit : rogersnider.wordpress / Jeff's blog/ 10-4 Magazine/ http://www.johnnyophoto.com/