As many of you know, I'm heavily involved with old cars as well as minitrucks, and one question I get asked a lot is: Which one inspires me more?
For me, the answer is simple. I've always been more inspired by minitrucks than old cars. It's been pretty simple for me because I promise myself to put minitrucks before any other type of vehicle. When I build old cars they're a direct reflection of my taste in trucks. Usually that equals something really low and simple.
What about the minitruck scene as a whole? Who inspires who? Do the newest trends in minitrucks come from the hot-rod and kustom world, or is it sometimes the opposite? In this case, the answer isn't just a simple yes or no; I think it goes both ways. Whether the kustom and hot-rod guys want to admit it or not, I believe that a lot of the more extreme trends in suspension have come from minitruckers. I think that nobody pushes the limits of suspension like minitruckers do. Some of the finest shops in the country are owned and operated by minitruckers. Some of the biggest names in the automotive industry are minitruckers, and even though not all of them are still minitruckers today, they started with some sort of minitruck back in the day and grew their custom passion from there.
Some minitruckers will move on from the minitruck scene for different reasons, but when they do go they take a small part of what it is to be a minitrucker into the new scene they decide to become a part of. Some may go into lowriders, and lowriders have been laying frame on big-body cars and trucks since the '70s. And as soon as minitrucks started to evolve, laying frame was one of the first things that created the adjustable suspension movement. The next step was to lay body, and we've been doing that since the '90s. Now, kustoms and rods are also laying body. This is one thing that I don't think anybody can take away from minitruckers. Sure, hot-rodders have been channeling cars since the '50s, but nobody was laying body before us. So the trend of 'bagging big-body cars like Cadillacs, Lincolns, Buicks, and so on all the way to the floor came from minitruckers. That is definitely a minitrucker trend that I've been guilty of more than once.
Minitruckers, however, have borrowed all other aspects of our truck building from all the other scenes. Suicide doors, suede paint, and whitewalls were here long before us. Hot-rodders did it first, followed by lowriders and vans in the '70s, and minitruckers picked it up from there. That doesn't mean we're not innovators by any means. There's no other scene out there (besides motorcycle clubs, but that's a whole other category) that has the same sense of brotherhood as minitrucking, and I wouldn't trade that for any list of mods or bragging rights about type of car or build.
At the end of the day I know where my mind stands, but what about you? Where does your influence come from? You can let me know by sending your emails, questions, and feedback to Mindofmacias@gmail.com.