Owner: Travis Chavin
Ride: '91 Nissan Hardbody
Location: Houma, Louisiana
Club: Negative Camber
If you ever see a young man lurking around the corner, watching people stare at this sick '91 Hardbody, it just might be its owner, Travis Chavin. Though now a giant in the mini-truckin' scene, with one of the most whored-out customs, one would be hard-pressed to call Travis outgoing. The best thing to do is just go up and make a random comment to him just to get a glimpse of those pearly whites.
For the last year or so mini-truckers have seen the progression of what would be one of the most talked-about mini's in some time - a Nissan Hardbody on 22s...heck, a body-dropped Nissan Hardbody on 22s. We can't see the progression of the low meeting the big going much further than this. What makes this even better is that this Hardbody is driven. It's not one of those trucks that they have to jack up, take off the fenders, and stuff the 22s on before letting it sit there and not move. How cool is it that this truck buries close to 10 inches of billet while driving by you like it ain't no thang?!
The story about how this truck came to be is a little different than most. Travis and DIB were working away on his beloved and rarely built Nissan Pathfinder. They were already on the second frame build and were ready to blow the mini-truck scene out of the water with their new creation. Then the worst thing possible happened: Some jerk from Southern California came out with one first (and it was no slouch). Travis' skin went from green with envy to fire engine red as all of his hopes and dreams were crushed.
With all future plans null and void, what was Travis to do? The only thing he felt he could: start a new project. The project of choice was his daily driven, lowered on 17s '91 Nissan Hardbody. So on 20s it went and away the project shot off. If you noticed a lot of random Nissan Pathfinder apparel on Doin' It Big, I'm sure you could figure out why. Hey, the remnants of the once soon-to-be-great SUV had to go somewhere.
It always seemed as if Travis's Nissan was the last-minute weekend time constrainer. One weekend they would bag the entire truck. A few weekends down the road, it was all dedicated to body-dropping it. So it would suffice to say that there aren't tons of hours, or weeks, in this truck but many lost weekends, which, if you are like us, is more valuable time; and we don't mean because all of the good TV programming that's on.
We're sure to see more from Travis, Duck, and the DIB crew. It seems that every show in the South is blessed with one of their creations in the making. The name does fit the behavior of this shop and its crew, as for years to come they will be doing it big.