Ready for show

Customized truck heads to Las Vegas show

Holly Dabb
Posted 11/9/18

Pinedale truck shows in Las Vegas.

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Ready for show

Customized truck heads to Las Vegas show

Posted

PINEDALE – First you get a tan 2011 Ford F250 truck.

Then you paint it with a specialized Glasurit premium blue paint – the kind used by Rolls Royce and Ferrari.

Add a custom 14-inch lift kit and fabricate a custom cradle that makes the truck more than 100 inches high.

Next, design and build customized quad exhaust stacks that should have been patented – but weren’t.

Then top it off with custom roof rack – also made locally.

After $175,000 to $200,000 worth of customizing – including man-hours during the past 18 months for everyone in the shop – what do you have?

A truck made in Pinedale, but ready to show in Las Vegas.

Resident Sam Lauchner is taking his pet project out on the road to show and tell – but maybe not drive.

After 18 months of custom work, custom paint and lots of bells and whistles, that 2011 Ford F250 truck was converted into a showpiece that was judged and displayed in Las Vegas at the Specialty Equipment Market Association’s show, Oct. 30-Nov. 2.

There it was judged by Chip Foose, co-host of a television show where a team of ace mechanics and designers transform mundane or even junky autos into unique custom cars.

“This is a big deal,” according to Danielle Belveal, credited with painting the truck. “More than 60,000 people from all over the world will be at this show.”

Only days before taking the truck, the finishing touches were being added – after being repainted because they arrived in black rather than the chrome finish that was ordered.

Lauchner used his skills at SKKR Kustoms to do a lot of the work. However, the finished vehicle was a team effort.

“Everyone in this shop has been under that truck working together at some point,” Lauchner said.

“The show will display my work to people all over the world,” Lauchner said. During the show, several magazines will be on hand photographing not only his work, but the work from other designers.

To his knowledge only one other vehicle built in Wyoming has gone to the show.

“It certainly wasn’t from little ol’ Pinedale,” Lauchner said. “This could put the work done in Pinedale on the map.”

How do you get a truck like that to Las Vegas? On the back of a trailer, of course.

“I don’t want to get rock chips on the paint,” Lauchner laughed.

The future of his truck is solely for show.

“It’s for sale for the right price,” he adds. “I’m not going mudding in it.”

He tells a co-worker, “You can, after you buy it.” n