Jason McCracken
Bristol, TN
1992 Toyota
With the rise and fall of the "ricer" movement, it was hard not to be drawn into that world or at least take notice of it. All of the wild stickers, big coffee can exhausts, lambo doors, and colorful vinyl interiors screamed for attention.
Sometimes a minitruck-style Honda would get lost in this world and be mistaken for a typical ricer. Jason McCracken from Bristol, TN was the owner of one of those minitruck-style cars complete with full tweed interior and air ride. He was also the brunt of many jokes from his minitrucker buddies as they gave him a hard time for driving a Honda. Don't get us wrong, there's nothing wrong with driving a Honda, but a minitrucker generally just can't pull it off without being made fun of. Eventually Jason decided to sell the Honda and go for something a little more his style. He bought this '92 Toyota extended cab that had already been customized to an extent but had never been finished.
Right off the bat, Jason tore the truck apart with full intentions of making it a feature-worthy truck. To handle the first part of the build, the truck was taken to The Slam Shack where Justin Wyatt and Kevin Miller worked their magic and made the truck road-worthy first and foremost. Since Jason was buddies with the shop, he was able to help out for a more hands-on approach. They went through the suspension, rewiring and relocating a few things. The rear 'bag mounts and four-link were redone, and the rear clip was smoothed out for paint. While inside the bed making room for the frame to stick through, a 10-gallon aluminum fuel tank was added along with two 3-gallon air tanks and two Viair 450s for the air duties. Plenty of polished hard lines not only run the air system but look good doing it. Being the inside of the bed was already smoothed out when Jason bought the truck, it was given the once over and a few things fixed before a good coat of primer was sprayed in preparation for paint. To give the truck the ultra-low stance that just a 'bag job doesn't quite do, it was also body-dropped 3 inches. To round out the rolling attire, a set of 18-inch Zora wheels were bolted on after they were squeezed into some low-pro Kumho rubber.
The next section of the build was dedicated to the body of the truck. Several things like the antenna, door handles, cargo light, and wiper cowl were shaved. The whole rear was welded up with a combo skin to smooth things out that much more. Up front, a Showdown Customs fiberglass cowl-induction hood was bolted on which gave plenty of clearance for the factory V-6 that was kept to power the Toy.
A sliding ragtop was also cut into the roof to allow plenty of sunshine in. Once the bodywork was done, it was time to take the truck over to Robert Sorah in Bristol, Tennessee, to spray the Matrix Electron Blue with pearl and the Sherwin Williams clear. Since Jason is a family man, he put his two-year-old son Dillon to work helping to assemble the truck when it came home from the paint shop. While Jason was on one side of the truck and Dillon was hanging out inside the truck, Dillon picked up a wrench that was laying around, leaned out the passenger side window and started banging the wrench on the outside of the door thinking he was helping. Knowing he was just trying to be like daddy and help, Jason took it all in stride and took the truck back to the paint shop to have the door repaired. Once things were ironed out, Jason added a chrome grille, mirrors, and 4x4 front bumper to complete the exterior.
Moving to the interior, Jason liked the old-school tweed look in his Honda so he opted for a full tweed design for the 'Yota. Gray tweed covers most of the panels while the seats also received blue inserts to brighten up the overall look of the interior. The custom-built back seat is also home to a custom car seat for his son Dillon, which has been wrapped in the two-tone tweed to match the front seats. This way his son gets to ride in style just like dad. Billet window cranks and a full billet B.A.D. Hellfire steering wheel add a nice touch to the finished interior. For sounds, a JVC head unit feeds a signal to Kicker amplifiers that power Boston Acoustic vocal speakers and the 10-inch Audiobahn sub that is in a box under the rear bench beside the battery. Jason along with the help of Tony Plummer and BJ Sams handled all of the interior duties and he's proud of the way it all came together.
Jason wanted to point out that the whole point in building this truck was to finish a project that someone else didn't and to spend valuable time in the garage with friends. Even though there were no official sponsors on this truck, Jason wanted to thank Bud Light for their frosty motivation through it all, helping him and his friends finish the truck.