Not A Mini Makeover

Although owners around the world use pickups for work and fun every day, somehow these people tend to think of large trucks as an American idea. Here, we build all sorts of trucks, from the most popular to the most unique, and many assume that such building isn’t done outside this country. Dodge’s D350 dualie has never been the most popular truck among those of us who enjoy cutting and rebuilding trucks, and we’re sure the Dodge is far less common in Pawl Shanley’s home of Wiltshire, England. There, this ’85 pickup must be something of a giant, and Shanley the Jack who slew it, cutting it apart before transforming it into something altogether different.

It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Shanley used an air suspension to allow the truck to sit as low as it does. With Air Lift’s Easy Street suspension, he can set the truck as low as he wants at the shows and it turns out that’s pretty low. With the bags fully deflated, the truck has no problems kneeling on the pavement. The Easy Street kit consists of double convoluted front bags in front and four bags in the rear. A Four Seasons engine-driven air compressor supplies the air to three separate air tanks. The benefit of this equipment, of course, is that when the owner is done showing the truck, he can raise it back up to a reasonable height for driving.

When the owner tells us that the Dodge also has new  chassis legs, we’ll assume that’s British car slang for front A-arms. The problem was that when at its new, low ride height, the steering shaft ran directly through the driver’s-side arm. The spindles are custom, too, to help maintain proper front arm geometry while still slamming the truck down low. Rayvern Hydraulics, which installed the air suspension, also cut a notch into the rear of the frame to provide the clearance for the rear Dana 70 axle.

The gears are 3.54 units sourced from Randy’s Ring and Pinion, while the dualie’s brakes are the stock discs in front and stock drums in back. The wheels are Foose’s Spank dualie design measuring 16×6 inches. The front tires are Dunlop Sport 9000s, sized 215/55R16, and the four rear tires are the same design, but slightly bigger at 235/60R16.

While the big story on this truck is the suspension, the motor has a few tricks of its own. The stock 360 block now sports an Edelbrock Performer intake atop a set of stock heads milled for extra compression. Gas enters the engine through the Holley 650 four-barrel carb and exits through a 3-inch-diameter Longlife exhaust system. Accel ignition lights the fuel charge, and a Serck Martson radiator keeps the 360 running cool, despite hauling such a heavy load. The 727 automatic transmission is also the stock piece that came in the truck.

The extreme drop caused numerous problems with the fit of the body components. Necessary changes included trimming the front wheel arches so that the wheels could turn enough so that the truck wouldn’t need a harbor pilot to guide it during parking maneuvers. Likewise, the builders moved the rear wheel arches 6 inches higher. Just about everything that linked the body to the frame in some way had to be altered the radiator was lowered, new steering shafts were made, the gas filler neck was relocated, transmission lines were fabricated, the pedals were repositioned and much more. The bed was even sectioned 6 inches to make room for the 6-inch body drop.

But there are many body modifications beyond the drop. The ’85 cab features a ’93 front end and hood, with the hood featuring a cowl induction scoop. Philips black-light headlamps replace the originals. The rain gutters have been trimmed down and the doors shaved entirely for a smoother appearance.

The bed, too, is quite a piece of work. The bed sides were hand formed in steel, and the fender flares were molded in fiberglass. Gone are the stock taillights, replaced with custom plasma-cut units in a custom rear pan. The bed itself is actually divided into two different boxes, with the front 4 feet lined in stainless steel and containing the tanks, valves and so on for the air suspension. Don’t look in there unless you want to go blind it’s all polished or chromed. The aft half of the bed is home to AV equipment such as Kicker amps and a Blaupunkt monitor. Each section of the bed hides underneath its own power-lifting tonneau cover, both of which are rigged to open and close at exactly the same speed. Andy Scott and Phil Bramhall of Custom Painthouse covered the truck in a base of BMW Montreal Blue, with eight coats of Leckler clear and House of Kolor Lilac marbleizing effect.

Shanley made an unusual choice when it came time to revamp the interior of his dualie; he took the truck to Aerotrim, a company that normally specializes in refitting aircraft, not cars. Still, it’s hard to argue with the results, and Aerotrim proved just as good at upholstering this truck as it is at aircraft. Aerotrim used several different light shades of leather to cover the Toyota seats and more, including the dash. The owner redesigned the layout of the stock dash and modified the instrument housings. Wool carpet covers the floor, and the sound system is extensive. The sound system comes from Blaupunkt and Kicker, with a Woodstock head unit feeding into four 10-inch subs, four 6-1/2-inch two-ways and four tweeters.

Shanley says that one unexpected expense in building this truck was storage. He had to buy a three-car garage to fit the Dodge, but it’s easy to see why he wants to keep it safe from Britain’s narrow streets. The owner is hardly done with the truck, saying that in the near future he expects to tear it down to bare metal and begin all over, with an even wilder paint job and much more on the horizon. Though he says the dualie has caused him headaches, frustration, physical pain, desperation, toothache, near concussion, cuts, bruises, frayed tempers and years of his life never to be regained, the process was obviously something he’s willing to start anew because, despite these issues, the process and the results were all worth it. From our viewpoint, Shanley is a pioneer, and the result of his efforts is a one-of-a-kind truck in a country of Minis.