The ability to take a couple of differing themes and blend them into an awesome hot rod, car, or truck is something that we have always thoroughly admired. It doesn’t always go well and it doesn’t always go as perfectly as it did here with the Trophy Rat. This is quite literally one of the coolest builds we have ever seen an Charles Wickam gets the credit for sending it to us. The video below is about a minute long and it is titled as a teaser so there must be more coming, but more of what? What is this thing?!
For starters you are looking at a 100% custom build by Northrup Fabrications to serve as a fun truck, a shop truck, and a calling card. The body is a 1937 International. The engine is an LS6, the rest is straight out of of the mind of Ken Northrup. If you have heard Northrup’s name before you may be a fan of Ultra4 racing because he builds lots of them. This truck takes lots of those themes in its construction even though they are hidden beneath the essentially quick release 1937 International body.The truck has 14″ of wheel travel at the corners, 2.5″ King Shocks that control those wheels and it goes on from there. The rear end is mounted using a four link style setup. The funniest part is the Speedway automotive sway bar that is living under there. Boy, if that thing could talk!
The truck weighs 3,600lbs, the roof has been chopped a few inches, and while it may look all old and ratty, there’s some high tech just below the surface to see. There’s a Racepak IQ3 dash and lots of other modern stuff that has been nicely hidden. It was a 2.5 year project to build something that was part rat rod, part street driver, part trophy truck, and part hot rod. That time was not wasted nor were the skills of the guys in the shop. This is a spectacular video.
I’m not off-road guy, but I like this truck in concept and execution