This thing at 80 miles per hour, it blows the tires right off it without the nitrous,
it's scary, it's real dumb, this thing is a real weapon.
So my name is Josh with Vague Industries out of Dublin New Hampshire, I'm here with my
1977 Toyota High Lux pickup truck, it's got a 2006 Crown Vic front and rear suspension
in it, it's got a turbocharged 5.3 liter 70-millimeter turbo and since I have no intercooler, got
100 shot of nitrous spraying straight into the intake so I figure nitrous is way better
than meth.
Found this truck in Pheonix for $250 bucks.
It was abandoned in the desert for 15 years and I spent about a week trying to get it
running in the desert and I wanted to just drive it back to New Hampshire stock.
I made it to New Mexico and I developed a wrist pin knock so I asked my buddy, I was
like hey, can I take 3-4 days and do a Crown Vic swap in your shop?
And he was like, yeah that's fine.
You know while I'm in there I might as well do this, I've got this out so I might as well
paint it so it ended up the cab came off it, the rear end came out of it, bed came off
it, frame got cut in half, and then I couldn't justify putting that knocking, ticking twenty
R back in it, the 4 cylinder, so it ended up with an LS motor, the guy came over and
was like, hey this thing needs a turbo it's so wide, it's so routed, the engine is sticking
out of the hood!
I was like, I am so done putting time and money into this, I just want to go home.
And the next day he comes over with a turbo and was like, you can have it if you put it
in!
Can't not.
But we ended up getting it boosted and when we got it together trying to make the last
2000 miles home the first 200 miles we stopped 35 times to fix or diagnose this truck, it
took days, but in doing so, we were able to meet some of the best people on the planet,
just the kindness of strangers, like we are living the American hot rodder's dream.
We're driving this hot rod across the country, we keep breaking down, just the American road
trip.
So people just wanted to be part of it, they just wanted to do what they could to help
so if you look at this truck there are hundreds of signatures on it, all of those signatures
are from people that wanted to donate whether it was parts, time, material, labor, a shower,
like anything to keep this adventure and this road trip going.
So this truck isn't necessarily about the quality of build, to me, it's about the quality
of people that have been involved in the truck.
So initially this truck was actually going to be a really nice thing.
You know I started doing the widebody, it was all straight and pretty and I wanted to
finish it, metal work it and media blast it, bodywork it, and it was going to be beautiful,
it was going to be a dark metallic black with the yellow-orange-red deck stripes like a
70's thing, I was going to put a big wing on it and then all this whole media tour that
this thing has been on the past two months.
I've gone twenty thousand miles in the past two months in this truck bouncing back and
forth cost to cost and it's just destroyed the truck, but everyone loves it.
So I kind of just gave up, I think I'm going to clear coat it to preserve all the names
and just the history, the heritage of the vehicle, the story.
The name of the truck is Death Wish and for good reason, you ride in this thing, 80 miles
per hour, it blows the tires right off it without the nitrous, it's scary, it's real
dumb, this thing is a real weapon.
Violent is probably the best word to describe it.
We gained the attention of the Hoonigan guys while we were out there, they said man we've
been following your truck, we saw you drove 3000 miles in that jalopy, what's another
8 hours?
Come out to Long Beach, we want to do a daily transmission on it.
So we got out there, we did that, we probably had such good content that I just made it
back to home a few weeks ago back to New Hampshire and then I get an email from them saying,
we really want you to come back out to LS Fest West and perform live with us.
By the way, you have ten days to be here, like what the hell man?
I just got done throwing down at Hoonigan over there, and the goal was to just blow
the tires off, that's all I've wanted to do this whole trip and as you can see, front
ones have air in it, but the rear one clearly does not, so if you want to check out more
of this Death Wish Toyota pickup, you got to be in Bowling Green in Septemeber because
we are road tripping back and we're not stopping in New Hampshire we're coming right back to
LS Fest in Bowling Green, you better be there.