This is our Paint and Body special, and the bodywork on Carson's Kodiak is our favorite part, so we've saved it for last. One look at this truck will tell you that it's extraordinary. Sal Estrada and Rolando Infante are responsible for the shaved tailgate and door handles, as well as the final paint: a deep, pearl green. The rear bumper is a Cadillac Escalade piece, while the front is custom, pieced together by Jos Carranza. Those modifications alone would have made for a beautiful truck, but you've no doubt noticed something even more special about this truck.
The front end of the truck was designed around '07 Tahoe headlights, and is the work of Aaron Elliott at Streamline Customs, who is also responsible for reworking the Monroe bedsides to get the body lines to match up. The custom front fiberglass perfectly molded in the Tahoe lights and also used a scaled-up version of the Tahoe's two trapezoidal grille openings, this time backed with a stainless steel mesh grille. The result is a truck that blends the Kodiak's cab, which is essentially a carryover of the '88-'98 style, with the cleaner front-end style of an '07 Tahoe. The look is leaps and bounds above the ho-hum styling the Kodiak had when it rolled off the assembly line. There's really no comparison.
Carson would like to thank the California Highway Patrol, which helped out by critiquing during the build to check out headlight height, overall width, and other important dimensions, just to keep Carson and his Kodiak out of trouble with the law. Carson built this truck without sponsors, but with the help of several talented craftsmen he'd like to thank, including: David Acosta, George Armendariz, Ronnie Burke, Luis Cardenas, Jos Carranza, Aaron Elliott, Sal Estrada, Tom Georgalos, Tommy Hua, Rolando Infante, and his father Stan, who supported Carson's choice to take apart a perfectly good, brand-new truck.