OWNER: Todd "Radar" Hendrex
RIDE: 1991 Toyota Extra Cab
HOMETOWN: Spring, TX
CLUB: Negative Camber
Do you ever wonder what happened to some of the old-school minitruck builders from back in the golden age of minitrucks, when the show fields were covered with thousands of minis?
Well, you don't have to look very far to find some high-profile builders from the past as many of their names read like a Who's Who in the hot-rod and custom-car industry. While some of the old guys have moved on and now might be building older and more exotic iron, there are still a few die-hard minitruck builders who have been in the game since they were old enough to see over the steering wheel.
One such builder is Todd "Radar" Hendrex from Spring, Texas. Radar was bit by the minitruck bug at a young age, and without calling him old straight to his face, that was before many of you were even born. He is one of the old-school members of the notorious minitruck club, Negative Camber and has contributed a ton to both the club and the minitruck scene as a whole. Just the fact that Radar has been in Camber since 1995 should probably be an automatic testament to the quality of the rides he has owned and built in the past. One of his most popular builds was a 1992 Isuzu SpaceCab that his dad bought him brand new when he was ready for his first project. It made the cover of this very magazine in November 2000. Since this is another issue paying homage to some of the old-school builders and their rides, this is the perfect issue to debut Radar's latest build to the world.
Radar has been working on this 1991 Toyota for some time, and it even made a few editors' short list of trucks that would probably never be finished. But Radar decided it was time to get serious with the 'Yota and wanted to build a new-school mini with a truly old-school feel. Radar has seen some really crazy trends come and go through the years, but he took the best ideas to come along over the last couple of decades and used them as his influence and theme on this build.
To perfectly execute this new-school build with actual minitruck trends of the past, Radar called upon some of the best and most famous old-school minitruck fabricators and painters to help him build a truck that would truly stand the test of time. With friends and builders like Pat Maxwell of Maxwell Auto Designs, Kustom Werx, Rob Rodell, Mike "Dolla Bill" Stewart, Mitch and Bill Carlton from Ekstensive, and Steve Nielsen, Radar has built the timeless mini that he set out to build. After many long and hard years, Radar pulled it together and perfected the right mix of new-school mods and old-school flavor. When we asked him if this is the best truck he's built to date, all Radar had to say was, "Wait till you see the 1986 Turbo Toyota that I'm working on now!"
You see, the nice thing about the badass hardcore old-school builders is that they NEVER stop! For more information on Radar's latest creation, peep the Lowdown.