So there we were, cruising the pits at Famoso, surrounded by hundreds of truly awesome race cars and I spotted it. The IT was the 1969 Dodge Sweptline truck you will see below. My eye immediately caught the large dually style rear end tucked inside the straight fleet side style fenders. The stance of the truck was perfection because it wasn’t all jacked up, it wasn’t all slammed down, it was just right. The thing looked like a work truck version of pro street and I was all in to learn more about it. I directed the gent that was driving the golf cart to follow the truck and we did, right to the end of the pits. We nearly forced the older guy who was driving right of the road, but then we backed off long enough so he could park. It took about three seconds to learn that this truck was about a whole lot more than a cool stance. This thing is epic.
Built as a highway cruiser and a hauler to move his 53′ boat around, we’re going to say that there isn’t another 1969 Dodge Sweptline that could out haul this truck. Riding on a beefed up version of the stock frame, this truck has a warmed up 12-valve Cummins engine backed by a 5-speed Spicer transmission….which is also backed by a 10-speed Road Ranger like you’d find in a big truck! That means that this dude (who’s name I didn’t even get before accosting him about the rig) has 50 forward gears. Just do the math. The rear end is a modified unit out of a Cadillac that he’s braced all up and narrowed. He is using the Caddy piece because it has a 2.73 ring and pinion in it. He said that the truck gets way over 30 MPG on the highway depending on how he has it shifted. The man has made his own air conditioning system for the cab, he put the motor in it himself and modified the engine bay mildly so it would fit right, he did the metal work in the bed to stretch the wheel housings so the dually tires would fit in. Basically anything done on this truck was done by the old dude who owns it and that rules the school. We wish we could see it at work with that huge ass boat behind it!
Oh, before you go to the photos of the truck which are below a story. As we came rolling up to the guy after he parked, the owner and his wife hopped out. His wife lamented the fact that he has built all kinds of hot rods, including just finishing a four year hemi powered deuce project and all anyone wants to talk about is the truck. The owner just smiled because even he knows how awesome the truck is.
Due to both the timing of our meeting and the place where the truck was parked, we weren’t able to get as many detail photos as we would have liked, but the shots below tell a pretty awesome story.
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE ALL OF OUR PHOTOS OF THIS AMAZINGLY AWESOME 1969 DODGE!
Oh my. Someone has to find this truck and do a full feature on it.
that is so awesome! I better quit stalling on mine!
Amen! Please, BangShift – find this truck and and give us more!!! More on the owner and his wife, too, since they sound pretty dang cool!
Oh Hell Yes !!!!!
When I saw the earlier pix of this, I wasn’t that interested, thinking it just a race truck. It just racheted up significantly on the cool scale. I sure wish I could find a mid ’60’s to do rather than the mid ’80’s trucks I have now. I guess I’ll just have to work overtime to make them cool…(at least they’re not chevies….)
Red Dot A/C unit, like what you’d have on the roof of your ’68 Peterbilt if you were really lucky.
How much suspension travel could he have with the trans so close to the rear end? Is there 8 lug wheels in back, and if so, how did he modify Cadillac axles for that? Did he make it a full floater? You need air to shift a 10 speed, does he have an engine driven compressor? I don’t see a range selector on the stick. I may have to drive to Nevada to find out, I gots to know.
If I remember there were some Caddy and Buick versions of the 14 bolt but they were semi-floaters. Probably not too hard to swap the ends and shafts out of a pickup, but why other than the ratio?
I’ve seen about ten different Cadillac “duallys” over the years, they were all cut behind the driver’s door and had campers added. I believe some one was marketing them. Starting back in the fifties.
this guy just invented pro-work
indeed, “pro work” works! excellent!! i’d love to stuff my 74 c25 with a dmax/allison to haul my s15 to the track.
I think he invented pro – tow.
This truck was so bitchin’ we literally ran the old guy down…. GENIUS doesn’t even begin to describe his work. Him and his gray haired mamma were cool about us slobbering all over it….LOL
This truck is way cool. I’d like to know about the linkage to shift the 5spd, that’s a long ways behind the cab. It would get tiresome shifting through 50 gears between lights. lol
Very cool looking truck, BUT.. I bet with a boat behind it it is unsteady. The springs are so close together on the rear that they don’t have much leverage against sway. Could be a scary ride. This is why duallies have the wheels sticking out.
That said, I would love to own it.
Dually rear axles are made wide to accommodate 4 ft. wide material between the wheel wells for maximum loading usage just as single rear wheel trucks do. Also factories did not want to make 2 different width beds for the same truck. Way down on the list was the added stability. This truck pulling a 53′ boat probably has no stability issues and would not have any except with a tall in bed camper. Depends more on spring rates and stabilizer bars. All the duallys I’ve owned hauling big campers were only a little better than the srw trucks at stability but the srw trucks had proper springs and stabilizer bars
This needs a full photo shoot,
This is why I come to this site daily, while it is a predominantly Drag Race orientated you guys are not afraid to step outside the box and show videos of 9000+ RPM Cosworth’s or a bitchin’ work truck. And while I’m not a big Mopar fan I too wouldn’t mind owning this rig.
yes PLEASE do an article on this very cool ride
R.B. Slagle and Carl Heap of the famous #480 Phoenix. Worlds fastest diesel truck at the salt flats (280+mph). They had an ’80 something GMC pickup with a 6-92 Detroit with twin turbos, ten speed, with a narrowed large truck type rear axle. They used it to pull the trailer with the 18,000lb Phoenix to Bonneville from Oregon and back. Somewhere I have a bunch of pictures of it.
Hefty Hauler.