Robert "Bobby D" Doza
South Houston, Texas
'69 Chevy C10
Have you ever heard the joke about what happens when you play a country song backwards? Your get your truck back, your dog back, and your wife back. Bobby "D" of Houston, Texas, didn't play this song backwards, so his dog never came back and the wife is still long gone. But, the truck never left and it has been crafted into a show-winning piece. Bobby calls his ride the Truck From Hell, mainly because building it cost him his wife, and it just sounds evil at the top of the Rs.Like most gearheads, Bobby got started at the young age of 12, building models and admiring his uncle's '32 Ford. The fire really got stoked when a family friend asked him to drive the tow car for a '57 Chevy racecar. Bobby couldn't even see over the dash, but he towed the car and fell in love with smell of race fuel and burnt rubber. Things were pretty tame in Bobby's automotive life until he returned home from Vietnam and purchased a Honda motorcycle that ran on 50-percent nitro. He kept building two-wheeled screamers, which included a 10-second Shovelhead Harley with a slipper clutch that he drove on the street.
Many years later, it was time to build something fast on four wheels. He traded a '92 Suburban for a clean '69 Chevy with the initial intention of just tubbing the rear to hold a set of 31x18.5 rollers and placing a big-inch small-block under the hood. Well, after making those modifications the rest of the build snowballed from there. During the late nights in the shop hammering away on the truck, Bobby's wife decided she had had enough and left him with his truck, which she called his mistress. His dog also decided to take a hike, but luckily his son and daughter stayed around and kept him on track by constantly giving encouragement to finish the truck.When Bobby couldn't do something on his own, which wasn't very often, he would enlist the help of one of his friends. Since he hangs with guys who own outlaw dragsters and such, the talent pool was pretty deep. Having those kinds of friends pushed him to do stuff like build a 421ci small-block and set a 6-71 blower on top of it.
His combination puts out 850 asphalt-shredding ponies that run through a TH400 trans and a hand-fabricated rearend with Strange components. The rear suspension has been redesigned for a set of Competition Engineering ladder bars in an attempt to wrangle all of those horses.
Bobby D's muscle truck street...
Bobby D's muscle truck street cred began on two wheels.
The truck was finally completed late in 2008 and Bobby took it to 24 shows and came home with 24 trophies. Don't think these are little Podunk shows either. We are talking events like the AutoRama in Houston where he received the Best in Class award. These shows have strict rules and judges who know what they are looking at and don't give out trophies willy-nilly like. We asked Bobby what shows he'll attend next season and he replied, "The 1st annual sit on my couch and watch TV show. I'm just going to have fun driving my Truck From Hell."