Some people wind up building custom rides over a period of time, but for a select few, they buy a ride and start tearing it apart right off the bat. Back in the summer of 2003, while Weylin Bradford was shopping for a new project truck in his hometown of Kensett, Arkansas, he came across an '89 Chevy fullsize. He knew as soon as he found it that this truck was destined to be torn apart and transformed into the custom Best of Show truck you see here.
After searching for parts and making the necessary notes and measurements, it was time to start removing parts and prepping the truck for the extensive customizing it was about to receive. Once stripped, the first thing to do was a little shaving. The door handles and tailgate handle were the first things to be welded up. After that, it came time to fill in the stock taillight vacancies. A set of Cadillac taillights were grafted in, an Escalade rear tag box complete with backup lights was installed, and a welded-in roll pan completed the modifications to the rear of the truck. Up front, more work was involved to get the truck looking just as Weylin wanted. The entire front clip, including the hood, fenders, headlights, and grille, was swapped out for units off an Escalade. This completely changed the look of the tired-looking stock front end, but Weylin wasn't stopping there with those minor modifications. Since Weylin knew he would never be happy with second best, he decided to take it to the next level. After doing a little hinge swapping and some welding in the doorjambs, both doors soon opened backward, suicide style. Next, it was time to cut off the roof, but not permanently, just long enough to chop 3 inches out of the pillars. Wanting to do things a little differently, the entire stock windshield was kept and laid back. This gave the truck a different look than the normal chop-top that loses part of the windshield. Because of this drastic change, he also had to lay back the front pillars on the doors and have all the other glass cut down to fit. Before the entire roof work was finished, Weylin molded in a Cadillac Catera third brake light above the rear window and prepped the truck for the paint booth. The floor of the bed was also raised to the top of the bedrails to make room for some of the other mods he had in the works. It also helped clear the wheels he wanted to use.
Once he finished all the bodywork and the entire truck was prepped for paint, Weylin decided on a PPG Yellow base. He also decided to put a few white flames down the sides and up the hood. Between all the flames he airbrushed several skulls, as well as a skeleton, on one side of the tailgate in order to start out the skeleton theme he planned to go with. Once everything was back together, the bed was taken to Line-X, where the new floor was sprayed in.