5. The Body
The paintjob went to Josh, who owns his own shop, called Nostalgic Restyling. Josh is your basic hot-rod guy and knows his way around candy paints and flakes. I told Josh I wanted something traditional and not too flashy. He came up with a suede and scallop idea to blend nicely over my truck's curves, which would give it a great old-skool flavor. I got the roll pan from Grant Kustoms and it's going to look great, especially since the factory bumper was ruined. One thing you guys might find crazy is that when I bought the truck, it had shaved door handles. Some quick searching on www.craigslist.org found me a new bed and new doors off of a wrecked '98 Tacoma. I ended up purchasing both for about $400, and now I have door handles. It might seem kind of backwards to add handles, but like I said, it's going to be a daily and I don't want to deal with pesky solenoids.
6. The Wheels
In order to save money, I would keep the existing wheels and freshen them up a bit. When I purchased the truck, I was really happy to see it had 18-inch rims with almost new tires. The only real big issue with the wheels was they had a lot of overspray on them, which was from a previous primer job on the bed. I had a choice: I could chrome the wheels or powdercoat them. I decided the powdercoat look would be best.
7. The Accessories
To give this truck a more unique look I will add a few parts. Most parts I will get from Mike Kazi at Auto Accessory Warehouse, such as the headlights, the corners, the intake, and the taillights. Other parts, such as the '01 Tacoma mirrors, '98 Toyota Tacoma 4x4 fenders, and the '97 Tacoma 4x4 bumper would come from the dealer. In the end, in order to save money, I decided to buy the 4x4 bumper from an aftermarket company. I found out through the grapevine that an old friend of mine had some factory fenders and bought those for a whopping $150. That was an incredible find, and saved me a ton of cash. The switchbox would come from AVS. I thought the one with the lock on it in blue would be an awesome addition to the interior.
Nick put a Tacoma rendering...
Nick put a Tacoma rendering together for me overnight. I loved it, and ran with it.
8. The Interior
The interior is the only thing we'll have to wait to see what I come up with. I don't plan on touching it until the end. What I have now is two interiors, the one it came with and a blue one I got from a friend of mine. I traded some rental space on my land for it. I live on an acre and I sometimes rent spots to people for storage, so I bartered a bit to get my hands on a complete dash. I found some Acura Integra seats in the classified ads and some Eclipse ones, as well. I'm not sure which ones will end up inside, but I imagine the ones that fit best after the traditional body-drop. I plan on adding a BAD steering wheel and maybe painting the dash, too.
9. The Design on Paper
Now that I had my design in mind, I went to Nick from Surface Art and had him work his magic on paper. The result is what you see here. I don't plan on it looking much different than this, other than a slight change in the colors. They will still be blue, but I may add some pearl to the flat blue paint.