Cars aren’t the only rides begging to be pimped.
Automakers spend small fortunes to style their trucks, but for guys like Bud Berotti of Island Park, N.Y., the manufacturers’ efforts are just blank canvases.
He and several buddies he met on the Internet are among millions of truck customizers nationally, folks who spend small fortunes of their own to make their vehicles unique.
Painted on the rear of Berotti’s 2002 Dodge Ram are the words “Life’s too short to drive an ugly truck.” Even without the sign, there’s no mistaking his Ram for anyone else’s, what with its blue and white paint scheme (that looks like either flames or waves), its front air dam, its custom grille and the hard tonneau cover over the pickup’s box.
“It’s a labor of love,” said Berotti, 39, who estimates that he’s spent $15,000 customizing his truck, not including his labor. “It’s the enjoyment of watching someone come up to look at your truck with a smile on their face. We get a high from it.”
Not surprisingly, the number of truck customizers has been growing in the past two decades as pickups, sport-utility vehicles and vans–once bought mostly as work vehicles–have become family haulers and status symbols, accounting now for more than half of new vehicle sales.
Customizing cars and trucks generated $28.9 billion in retail sales last year, says the Specialty Equipment Market Association, a trade group that includes many of the estimated 15,000 parts and accessories manufacturers. That’s almost double the 1994 figure. Trucks account for about a third of that. “It’s explosive,” said Kim Zeibell, marketing manager for Bushwacker Inc., a Portland, Ore., company known among customizers for its fender flares and other truck accessories.
Performance enhancers, body modifications, tinted windows, seat covers, entertainment equipment, pickup bed liners and extenders, gun and ski racks–there seems to be no limit to what owner-customizers will install.
A recent issue of the Dupont Registry, a slick magazine filled with ads for exotic and rare vehicles, offered a Ford F-150 pickup truck with a 38-inch plasma TV on the front wall of the covered cargo box–served by a satellite dish, of course. The box also had two kegs, a sink with running water, a barbecue hanging off the back and a PlayStation 2 .
Rick Greengus has invested $80,000 in his 2002 Dodge Dakota, which has a throbbing 6,000-watt audio system with a steel-frame speaker box in the bed. The system is powered by an Alpine deck and has a CD/MP3 changer and eight Alpine amplifiers.
The electronics require a high-power battery and alternator as well as a digital gauge to monitor current flow. The truck has six LCD monitors, including three
20-inchers in the bed.
To defray costs, some customers get sponsorships from local dealers, such as stereo shops, which provide equipment in exchange for a logo on the truck and appearances at shows.
Guys like Berotti want their trucks to be unique. “My thing is, I can’t go down the street and see a truck that looks exactly like mine,” Berotti said. “It makes me go nuts.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
