Custom Rigs : November 2009
Ram Good Rig
22 CUSTOM RIGS Winter 2009 D odge's Bighorn is a true collector's ride. The highly sought-after tractors were produced only between 1972 and 1975, and only a mere 261 were sold in North America. Today less than a 100 are thought to still exist in varying conditions. Todd Cox, owner of Todd's Auto Body in east-central Oakwood, Illinois, recently put a bid on one sitting in an Iowa junkyard. The yard wanted a whop-ping $8,500 for something that was sitting there rotting away, Cox says. The only thing good on it was the hood. Fortunately, Cox didn't need the hood that badly, as he'd already undertaken and finished what he calls the retro mod Bighorn an immaculately restored and customized '75 model he bought in August of 2006 from fellow collector Tony Youngblood in Augusta, Georgia. (Youngblood had just purchased the first ever Bighorn putting aside his original plans to restore the one he sold to Cox.) I did the truck to my tastes, Cox says of his blue-and-white showpiece. It features a fully custom inte-rior, a ton of custom-made parts, and an airbrushed paint job with a theme in keeping with the truck's classic Bighorn name. The truck was finished just in time for 's Overdrive Pride & Polish event at the Mid-America Trucking Show this March. Cox deservedly rolled away with a First in the Antique class. I was sort of surprised, really, he says, consider-ing the upgrades. The interior is far from original, with Bostrom seats, a wood floor, custom dash and hand-made headliner. Clearly, though, the essence of the Bighorn remains. Cox seems bitten by the Bighorn restoration/cus-tomization bug: He just bought another one for $15,000 from the original owner a coal hauler in Pennsylvania complete with a sleeper cab. Looks like we could see a herd of Bighorns at future shows! When you remake a `75 Dodge Bighorn into a c lassy retro-mod ride, yo u end up with a ... By TODD DILLS Photos by Bruce W. Smith