Ford Motor Company asked Brad to design a concept truck based off an '04 F-150 to be showcased on the main turntable in the Blue Oval booth at the 2003 SEMA Show. FoMoCo wanted a performance-based custom with serious hot-rod flair and high-end influence to show the potential of the newly released '04 body style. To start the ball rolling, Brad contacted Kyle Tucker of Detroit Speed and Engineering for a little back up in the planning and fabrication of this project. Kyle helped lay out a course for the suspension buildup. At Detroit Speed, the decision was made to convert the rear suspension over to an independent design. Ford handed over a complete rear axle and suspension from an '03 Lincoln Navigator. Kyle removed the F-150 bed and created the necessary room and mounts on the factory truck frame to accommodate the rearend swap. The Navigator rear suspension rides on airbags, but for a performance build such as this, they are useless. Detroit Speed put together a coilover-style replacement using pieces from Koni. An additional set of adjustable Koni coilover struts is riding under the front of this hauler. To keep body roll to nil, Hotchkis created sway bars specific to this truck's needs. Providing motorvation for this concept is a supercharged 5.4L 32-valve DOHC V-8 pushing its ponies through a Hurst-shifted T-56 six-speed manual bang box. Breathing chores are handled by a factory high-flow intake and Borla exhaust. A Be Cool radiator ensures consistent temps for driveability, and a Fuel Safe fuel cell allows this truck to roll pedal to the metal. Bonspeed 20-inch forged alloys were given to DuPont for a powdercoat called New Penny before being rubberized with BFGoodrich P265/50R20 and P305/50R20 g-Force tires. Backing down from the speeds, this truck is capable of required large binders. Baer stepped up to have them supplied before final road testing.
Back at Bonspeed, the now sport-oriented F-150 could run the part but certainly didn't look it. With nothing available on the market, Eric Pepper and Jon Polo, of Bonspeed, started on molding their canvas into a wind-defying missile. A new lower fascia was first created in clay (see sidebar), and then from a fiberglass mold. Thunderbird '03 driving lights were incorporated into the design to keep with the Ford parts theme. The front grille was modified by removing the crossbars and adding honeycomb mesh inserts. Continuing the wind-cheating theme, the fuel-filler door was moved into the bed, and functional brake ducts for the rear brakes were molded from fiberglass and fit to the lower bed sides. Detroit Speed cut smooth metal panels to fill the inner confines of the bed, and the plastic bedrail caps saw themselves thrown away to be upstaged by fiberglass units. Bonspeed's design group wrote the stock bumper into the final product, but it was flipped, narrowed, reshaped, and smoothed before it was all over. The tailgate was all-together removed, creating a void in that a Pro Drive carbon-fiber wing filled. Derek Lies and Lil' John Buttera made billet ends for the wing. In the center of the bed, another wing was used as a diffuser panel for the truck when it was at speed. Hiding all the intense metalwork is DuPont Black Currant expertly laid down by the amazing crew at L&G Enterprises in San Dimas, California. L&G had to finish the smoothing of all the body restyling and do a complete color change to the concept truck.