When you see trucks in a magazine or even in real life, you think of lots of muscle and maybe some good ol' boys who built them. That assumption is true for most custom trucks, because it is mainly guys who own them and get crazy enough to cut them up. But, once in a while, we come across some females who will throw a wrench in our gears just to mess with us. And when they do, we can turn our heads and just grovel at the amazing accomplishments that women can make.
Bobbie Rader is one of those female individuals who is out to stir things up. She has been doing this ever since she was 7 years old. That was when her mother's boyfriend introduced her to the automotive world, since he raced a dirt track car in the local circuit. Bobbie became very intrigued with the racing bit and helped out as a member of the pit crew.
Once she got older, her interest in cars remained, and she would make her way to shows on her own. Later on, Bobbie met John Rader, who would become her husband, and they shared a strong bond through motor vehicles. Together, they bought a Chevrolet Cavalier to drive, and later they fixed it up. After driving it around, Bobbie found out very quickly that she didn't like small cars and wanted to move on to bigger vehicles.
She ditched the car and went the total opposite direction when she bought a lifted '91 Chevy Blazer. It had a body lift over a set of 33-inch tires, and it was your typical large and in-charge highway beast. Then again, Bobbie discovered that the vehicle she owned wasn't really what she liked. She went for big and just went too far for her liking.
Bobbie toned down her truck craze and traded her monster Blazer for a second-gen Dodge Ram. John then took over and drove it on his 40-minute daily commute to work. Living in Missouri, there wasn't much of a custom influence for the Raders to get into the whole lowered truck scene-that was until their friend Brian Staack, who owned a stereo shop, enlightened them to custom trucks.
From there, the truck slowly evolved to getting more custom as time went by. The first step was a 3/4-inch drop to clean things up a bit. Then, once they started going to even more shows, Bobbie decided that she wanted the truck to go even lower with airbags and a set of 18-inch wheels. The cool fact about it was that Bobbie and John did all the work to the truck on a gravel driveway in front of the house they were renting.
After building the truck outside with weathering conditions, they decided to step up their game by getting a shop to work in. Bobbie and John saved up the money and bought a house with a shop on the property. Then, the name No Coast Kustoms was given to their shop that housed Bobbie's Dodge. After they moved in, Bobbie got bored with how the truck looked and wanted to rebuild the whole thing. This last winter, they spent countless hours at night to completely revamp the truck. Since they worked regular jobs in the daytime, they came home to spend the rest of the long winter nights in the shop.
This truck has evolved as more of a fluke than anything else on how it came to be. The first oddity about it is the fact that the truck is a Dodge, and the popularity of them is very low versus the abundance of Chevys in the scene. Another is that a woman with the help of her husband built it. She not only owns it but also had a hand in the construction. Besides the painter, the two of them were the only people to work on it. Lastly, the Raders live in an area of Missouri that has little to no truck scene to help with motivation of the project. With all that against them, the truck overcame all odds to turn into what it is today.