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1940s Shop Race Truck

This is the truck that put D&R Hot Rod Shop on the map. The body is a '40s-era truck, but everything underneath it is ours — a full custom tube chassis fabricated from raw steel tubing, cut, bent, and welded in this shop. When it first rolled out, there wasn't a piece of that frame we hadn't built ourselves.

We raced it ourselves for six seasons. That's six years of hauling it to the track and making passes, proving the chassis out under real conditions. You can't learn that from building something and parking it. The years we spent racing this truck taught us how a chassis actually behaves when it's hooked up and putting power down, and those lessons went straight into every customer build that's come through the shop since.

After its years with us, the truck went to a diesel shop in Georgia. They dropped a 2,500-horsepower diesel between the frame rails and campaigned it hard — Street Outlaws, Outlaw Armageddon, mid-4-second eighth-mile passes, and one run where a turbo line let go mid-pass and the truck caught fire, kept going, and won the round anyway. The truck later sat on the floor at the PRI Show in Indianapolis.

The truck did things we never designed it to do, under power we never imagined.

That's why this truck is the one people point to.

Build Highlights

  • Full Custom Tube Chassis: A complete tube chassis fabricated in-house from raw steel tubing — cut, bent, notched, and welded by our own hands. No kit, no modified production frame.
  • Six Seasons of Racing: We campaigned the truck ourselves for six years. Every pass tested the chassis, and what we learned went into the builds that came after.
  • 2,500 Horsepower Chapter: After it left us, a Georgia diesel shop dropped in a 2,500-horsepower diesel engine and ran mid-4-second eighth-mile passes.
  • Street Outlaws & Outlaw Armageddon: Competed on national television in the Street Outlaws franchise and went rounds at Outlaw Armageddon.
  • PRI Show — Indianapolis: Displayed at the Performance Racing Industry Show, the biggest trade event in motorsports.

Build Photos