By Rob Fortier – Images by Brent MacAdam
As one’s family grows, so must their vehicles—carrying capacity, that is. I’ve always been a huge fan of single-cab, bucket seat pickups. While they’re great when it comes to “not” having to drive when larger groups of people are involved, they are a hinderance when you actually need to haul more than one person around!
SoCal truck builder Raul Verdin (Twisted Metalworkz) found himself in a bit of a “capacity” predicament not too long ago, as he told us just after Brett “Mac in Motion” MacAdam snapped these shots of his 1996 Chevy Tahoe during last year’s C10 SLO Down: “… I was building a static body-dropped, single-cab OBS that my wife, daughter, and I could enjoy together—and then the plans changed. Just when I was getting the interior done from Custom Dimensions we found out we were having twin baby girls … so the single cab was no longer going to work as our cool family truck. Fortunately, one night on OfferUp, I found what was always my ‘dream’ truck, a 2WD two-door Tahoe, and just had a really great feeling about it. The next day I went to check it out and it was perfect—and by perfect, I mean it was far from it but perfect for me and my dream build!”
But Raul’s dream build wasn’t going to be just any ordinary custom Tahoe—but much like his prior build, it was going to be channeled and, uniquely enough, incorporate an entire interior/dash components from a 2019 Camaro donor car (which also supplied the 6.2 LT4/10L90E drivetrain).
“After many, many days, even months of ideas, I figured out some key important details I wanted to do. The main thing it had to have was a full back bench, as I wanted to be able to put three car seats for our daughters and jump in and go. I was also determined on an LT4 and of course body dropped on 24s and it had to be Viper Red with black interior. From there the ideas just kept getting wilder and wilder … my friend Camilo would laugh because I would say I just wanted to keep it simple, but as you can see, it’s far from it! Camilo was actually the one who convinced me to do the complete Camaro interior and all the electronics from the donor car. From the interior idea it just escalated with ideas.
“I wanted to build something I had never seen; I love the two-door Tahoe exterior design, so I decided to leave that as original as possible but have the interior and engine be wild yet clean and simple and let the workmanship do the talking. For the interior I wanted it to look as if the truck would have come from the factory like that; for the engine bay the idea was to have a badass supercharged LT with a complete wire tuck along with all the plumbing and make it as if it was just sitting there non-functional.
“As the build started and moved along rather smoothly, I have to say I’m glad we chose that route and the ideas we went with, especially because my main goals were accomplished. I learned a lot of new things, made new friends, and met a lot of amazing people through this build. To top it all off, my family and I have a one-of-a-kind two-door Tahoe to enjoy together … all five of us!”
In the process of channeling the Tahoe, Raul/Twisted Metalworkz built a one-off chassis that incorporates Slam Specialties bags, Viking adjustable shocks, and Little Shop’s OBS Wilwood six-pistons front and rear with a Mustang II power steering rack and Twisted’s on four-link rear suspension—all tucking 24-inch Intros wearing Vredestein 25/30-series radials. After some minor exterior shaving, California Autoworx handled the body and paint, while Toning Auto Interiors and Custom Dimensions took care of implementing the Camaro interior (and various custom work, including the full audio system) once Twisted had integrated the complete Camaro dash and electronics.
Check out this story in our digital edition here.
