KRUSTY

You know it when you see it. 

You can put your hand on it and feel it; you can even open the door and smell it.

The aura – the personality – of a well-worn truck simply can’t be ignored. 

Faded paint, a not-so-surprising bruise on the body, a well-earned tear in the bench seat – and maybe even a little rust here and there – are all characteristics of a tried and true, well-used classic truck. 

And when a build is tastefully executed on said truck, the results can be breathtaking and nothing short of stunning. And that’s what we get with Krusty, Taylor Inge’s 1973 super patina squarebody. 

Taylor is not new to creating super special, “show quality patina” trucks – to reference another appreciator of a finely executed patina classic, Boris Maryanovsky of Street Machinery. Like Boris, Taylor appreciates the perfect blend of original paint, surface rust and tire-burning horsepower. As evidenced here in this spread, Taylor absolutely knocked form-and-function out of the park on this ’73.

The first step on his journey with this truck was to actually procure it. As many do from the East (Taylor lives in Louisville, Kentucky), he looked West – Paradise, California, to be exact. Purchased off 5 pictures, Taylor fell in love with the heavy surface rust and original paint exterior while taking note of the unbelievably clean original red interior, and the coolest-of-all grille guards (think CUCV). 

Once the truck landed in Kentucky, Taylor and his now-11 year old son, Breaker, put together a plan to build the truck together (and when we say Breaker helped build the truck, we mean it – he can do more with his tools than most grown men, including the author of this piece). 

As the parts started to roll in, boxes filled with Ridetech coilover suspension, Vintage Air components, Dakota Digital gauges, and a Brian Tooley cam to power the Cadillac 6.2 LSA backed by a 6L90 began to fill up Taylor’s shop, Inge Autoworks. Over the next 4 months, Taylor and Breaker tore the truck down to the frame, and began to work their way back up starting with the Ridetech suspension and a stock-ish wheel and tire package – one of the author’s favorite parts of this truck – using Wheel Vintiques 15×6 and 15×8 steelies in the front and rear, respectively, wrapped in BFGoodrich rubber. 

Once the chassis was a roller, including Wilwood 4-piston (front) & D-52 (rear) calipers connected to 12” rotors for stopping power and a 3.73 Detroit Tru-Trac stuffed 12 bolt out back, the 600 hp, LSA blown 6.2 liter and 6L90 were dropped in between the rails. A quick-ratio Borgeson steering box, Slosh Tubz Mild Tubz, CPP hydroboost, and a set of Speed Engineering longtube 1-3/4” headers round out the under-hood components. As you can imagine, Taylor wanted the blown 6.2L to breathe well and it does just that through a 3” TIG-welded stainless steel exhaust using Magnaflow mufflers. 

While the interior remains the perfect amount of original, Taylor knew that monitoring the vitals of the truck would be important – particularly since Taylor has a bit of a heavy right foot – so a set of Dakota Digital gauges were installed to keep him informed and confident to keep the pedal mashed. 

It’s no secret that a well-built truck is often the sum of its parts and, in the author’s opinion, starting with a quality candidate is paramount; however, the memories made in this truck so far appear to tell the story better than the “build” itself.

Taylor, Breaker, and his friends (ahem, Bruce Taylor) have put over 18,000 miles on the truck since it was finished in 2020; they’ve laid miles of rubber doing 600 hp burnouts; encountered countless ear-to-ear grins on the road – including driving the truck thousands of miles round-trip to Dino’s Git Down ‘22, Hot Rod Power Tour with Taylor’s high school best friend, Dave King, and Goodguys Columbus with Breaker. 

Taylor attributes some of the best times to simply jumping in the truck and driving somewhere to lunch with Breaker or a friend. 

Simply put, “this truck brings a lot of people together and that’s the most fun part of it.”

We agree, Taylor. We agree.