This Grand Canyon State Inspired 1978 Ford F-250 Restomod Is Pure Class

*With an interior this beautiful, I’d stare longingly at it as well…*

I love it when a custom vehicle is done up, and done well, around an aesthetic theme. This ’78 Ford F-250, built by an Arizona outfit called Fat Fender Garage, was restomod’ed as kind of an homage to the Arizona desert, and man does it look good. One of the owners, Avery Sly (cool name), shared “We discovered this truck in rural Arizona and immediately saw its potential as the quintessential desert truck… my vision was to build a truck that pays tribute to the state I’ve called home for over a decade and that it has called home for its entire 46-year life.”

Harrison Woodruff, the truck’s other owner, added: “This truck is a tribute to desert trucks and a celebration of the absolutely spectacular Grand Canyon region where we restored it and brought the vehicle back to life. What we found so interesting in restoring this truck is that the exterior and interior express two different sides of the same story of its life out on a ranch in the Arizona badlands not far from the Grand Canyon. We preserved the original patina and beautiful textures of the exterior earned over decades of work while completely reimagining the interior for modern-day driving.”

*Modern air conditioning is hidden under this classic truck’s dash, but the entire cab looks period-correct. It’s pure class.*

This is certainly not the first old truck restored with a Southwestern vibe, but the interior in particular came out so well that I really wanted to post about it. Fat Fender Garage shared the vehicle’s price at $95,000 and quite a few details on the build, the full title of which is “1978 Ford F-250 Highboy Derelict Badlands Truck.” Highboy is an unofficial designation you might have heard referring to some pre-1980 F-250s. The short story there is that four-wheel drive on big pickups was typically an aftermarket thing back in those days. The truck bodies had to be scooched up a bit to make room for a transfer case to drive the front axle, hence, they became known as highboys.

Off-road expert Verne Simons wrote up a nice oral history of the highboy term for Four Wheeler a long time ago that’s now on MotorTrend‘s website if you want another rabbit hole to peek in after you check out the pictures of this sweet ’78… read more >