BROCOMA

Living Life on the Rocks

- STORY BY JOHN MATA JR

Tor There are plenty of reasons to build a full-custom truck, but it's always refreshing to see when someone does it for very personal reasons. It's easy to fall into the trap of slapping together parts that don't work well together, only to lose hope in the project out of pure frustration. It's obvious when someone does their homework before building a rig, and already has the endgame figured out long before closing in on the finish line. These types of projects are always a treat to take an in-depth look at due to their thoroughness and ingenuity, which we will soon see here.

We recently caught up with Central California native, Garrek Becker, and his majorly beefed up 2002 Toyota Tacoma. Now, getting the truck to this point didn't take too long, as he completed the build in under 8 months. The project didn't even cost a whole lot either (relatively speaking) considering Garrek estimates his grand total in parts and labor amounting to $25k. That price tag is a bargain considering he ended up with a truck that was custom built to meet his very specific requirements based largely on the ability to scale boulders and other such sketchy terrain.

Since owning a spit-shined showboat just wasn't in Garreck's playbook for his Tacoma, he focused on its suspension system, which would ultimately take him straight to the top. To start, he boxed in the factory Toyota frame, then assembled a load of components to lift his truck 6 inches all around.