Warning: The truck shown here is real, and the images you see were not doctored to make the truck seem lower than it really is. The last thing Sport Truck would do is bamboozle our readers by heavily modifying a photo of a feature vehicle. We believe in showing nothing but the real trucks in the scene and searching for hidden treasures like this one.
What you are looking at is the world's first 'bagged and body-dropped '07 Chevy Silverado*. Chris Caldwell of Chaotic Rods and Customs performed all of the fabrication on this truck, and we can tell you that he had to have a lot of guts to void the warranty on his truck for the sake of rolling something cool. A funny bit of information is that Chris kind of fell into buying this new Silverado without any intention of going wild with it. Like most people, he didn't like the look of GM's newly redesigned truck but knew as a rule of thumb that most trucks look better lowered.
On a budget, Chris was only able to afford a work-truck version of the Silverado and figured that the black exterior pieces could be easily painted at Chaotic. He figured he might lower it only a few inches, but when you're friends with Eric Rankis of Ekstensive Metalworks, it's easy to be persuaded into building a truck to go crazy low. Before Chris knew it, he was creating a new front and rear suspension by welding together precisely cut pieces of steel tubing. The rear was easily set up with a two-link and a track bar, whereas the front uses spindles from the '99-'06 Silverado and a set of custom control arms designed to have minimal camber at all heights.
With the help and guidance of Eric, Chris slaved away during many long nights and weekends to advance this project with every well-spent hour. Once both parts of the suspension were finished, they were joined together with 2x3x1/4-inch wall steel tubing to form a full custom frame. Then, the body was jacked up, and the frames were swapped out during another long weekend. Afterward, Chris made room for his 24x10-inch Boss Motorsports 313 wheels under the hood and added wheeltubs with a notch cover for them in the bed. The last thing on the list was to paint the front bumper, the rear tubs, the door handles, and the mirrors to make it more presentable.
During our photo shoot, this truck was still not running yet and had to be manually aired up via the shop compressors. Pretty much all that is left to do is to make a custom fuel cell and tie up all of the loose ends, so he can drive this truck on his everyday commute. Chris worked most of his free time for a month straight to get it where it is and took his first weekend off to bring the truck to the Texas Heatwave in Austin, Texas, and to see what kind of response he would get. Since he is such a low-key guy, he overheard a bunch of people making statements like, "I thought these new trucks were ugly until seeing this one." We agree that the new style of the Silverado is a bit sketchy, but looking at this one we can see the potential it has. Luckily for all of us, Chris plans on finishing the truck so he can have the first complete version of it. After he works his magic, we will be showing it to you on our cover one last time, and it will get a full feature spread.
When we first heard about...
When we first heard about Chris' truck, we went out to his house to see the front and rear suspension in the works. Later, they were joined together to make a stock-floor body-dropped chassis.