This Trophy Truck Is A Ford Crown Victoria Underneath

This Trophy Truck Is A Ford Crown Victoria Underneath

After blitzing through the entire Bad Obsession Motorsports catalogue in a little over a week, YouTube’s algorithm has me pegged as the kind of person who would enjoy some gnarly DIY project vehicle builds. And for possibly the first time ever, YouTube’s algorithm is 100 per cent correct. So when it delivered up a build series developing a 2006 Ford Crown Victoria into a desert racer truck for me to watch, I was hooked instantly.

Now, before you go tearing into me about how this isn’t as obsessively crafted or meticulously built as Project Binky, you’re absolutely right. This Crown Vic desert racer was built to a seriously tight budget, just $US4,000 ($6,001). I’ll give builder Austin Coulson a little leeway in that regard, because the finished product turned out super cool for having started with an old Ford sedan. He turned that sow’s ear into a regular silk purse.

My third car was a Crown Victoria (after I crashed a Grand Prix and got burned by a Triumph TR-7) and I loved it dearly. The Ford modular 4.6 V8 is a pretty great engine, and the chassis is soft and long enough to soak up pretty much any bumps from the factory. I ran my 1992 “aerovic” to a runner-up position in the Detroit region SCCA rallycross RWD Prepared class championship back in the day. It’s a damn fine automobile, if I do say so myself.

Obviously Mr. Coulson has done quite a lot of suspension work to his Crown Vic, including removing it completely and replacing it with proper off-roady bits. But the big V8 and the original steel chassis remain. Though, to be fair, that’s pretty much it. Oh, and that engine doesn’t sit up front where it used to anymore. You know what? I don’t want to spoil it for you, go ahead and dive in from episode 1. It’s worth a watch.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.