I love it when a custom vehicle is done up, and done well, around an aesthetic theme. This ’78 Ford F-250, built by an Arizona outfit called Fat Fender Garage, was restomod’ed as kind of an homage to the Arizona desert, and man does it look good.
One of the owners, Avery Sly (cool name), shared “We discovered this truck in rural Arizona and immediately saw its potential as the quintessential desert truck … My vision was to build a truck that pays tribute to the state I’ve called home for over a decade and that it has called home for its entire 46-year life.”
Harrison Woodruff, the truck’s other owner, added: “This truck is a tribute to desert trucks and a celebration of the absolutely spectacular Grand Canyon region where we restored it and brought the vehicle back to life. What we found so interesting in restoring this truck is that the exterior and interior express two different sides of the same story of its life out on a ranch in the Arizona badlands not far from the Grand Canyon. We preserved the original patina and beautiful textures of the exterior earned over decades of work while completely reimagining the interior for modern-day driving.”
This is certainly not the first old truck restored with a Southwestern vibe, but the interior in particular came out so well that I really wanted to post about it.
Fat Fender Garage shared the vehicle’s price at $95,000 and quite a few details on the build, the full title of which is “1978 Ford F-250 Highboy Derelict Badlands Truck.” Highboy is an unofficial designation you might have heard referring to some pre-1980 F-250s. The short story there is that four-wheel drive on big pickups was typically an aftermarket thing back in those days. The truck bodies had to be scooched up a bit to make room for a transfer case to drive the front axle, hence, they became known as highboys.
Off-road expert Verne Simons wrote up a nice oral history of the highboy term for Four Wheeler a long time ago that’s now on MotorTrend‘s website if you want another rabbit hole to peek in after you check out the pictures of this sweet ’78.
This truck’s exterior was kept pretty simple, patina preservation like this is always fun as far as I’m concerned. But the cab is clearly the star of the show. The saddle brown leather is from Apex Leather’s Infinity Series. The bench seat, door panels, and sun visors are upholstered with Pendleton Grand Canyon fabric inserts. And the flooring has Ultra Blue square-weave carpet also from Apex Leather.
I love that the original square gauges were left intact, there’s no stupid screen anywhere to be found, and even the old-school climate controls and a retro-looking radio face are still in place. There is a modern air conditioning system hidden away though, which is probably pretty helpful in Arizona. Fat Fender Garage also did a really neat job integrating custom burl walnut wood inserts on the door panels to match the original glovebox. It’s pure class. Even the window cranks, re-made in billet aluminum, look awesome.
Drivetrain-wise, the builders took kind of an interesting approach—instead of swapping in a super modern engine, the builders got a Lincoln 460 to drop in, then added an aftermarket Edelbrock fuel injection system. A shop out of Phoenix called Danny’s Vintage Fords handled the mechanical upgrades. I appreciate this period-correct approach to repowering the rig. A 460 V8 would have been the biggest engine an F-250 from this era could have from the factory, and as far as I know, those were only two-wheel-drive. Hence, calling this a Highboy makes even more sense.
The axles are modern Dana 60s, which would allow for major weight capacity and are probably overkill here but are consistent with a Ford Super Duty.
I really like this build. And for the amount of work it looks like it took to put together, $95,000 doesn’t even sound outrageously expensive. There are only two things I’d change: The headlights and the wheels.
Those beadlock-style Method 305s are a little too aggressive for the truck’s vibe—I’d reach for something a little more old-school like an American Racing Baja, in chrome, with just a tiny bit less diameter than what’s going on here.
The lights aren’t bad, and I understand wanting to ditch a junky sealed-beam halogen for an LED, but I’d swap whatever was used here for some Holley Retrobrights which are more opaque and do a better job hiding the fact that they’re modern when they’re off.
This build’s really all about the cab, though. It’s inspired me to get back to tinkering on some of my own neglected projects … time to boot the mice back out of my outside-parked trucks.
Seen any other trucks that do a desert theme justice? Email the author at andrew.collins@thedrive.com