Dustin Dickerson : My name is Dustin Dickerson. I am the owner of Dickerson Custom Trucks in Thorntown, Indiana. We’ve been living in the same building since about 20 years. We started off doing cars, trucks, motorcycles and other things and then kind of transitioned to semis. In the last five or six years, I would say we’ve really gotten into our stride. We’ve been really stepping up our game. We’ve been doing the semis for 10 or 11 year, and we’ve really tried to raise the bar not only for the industry, but also ourselves. We have always tried to outdo what we did before. That’s what we were trying to do here.
We were honored to be invited to the build-off in 2024. It was a recognition of where we had pushed ourselves in our career.
We started with a 96, 379. I hauled some corn with it last fall. It was a very heavy-duty truck. It was a nice vehicle. It was not a junk truck, but we reskinned it all, including every rivet, panel, roof cap and everything else. We used the 389 skins, which reduced the number of rivets.
We added a 389 hood. I needed some extra space to fit this 3412 Cat engine in there. I didn’t stretch the hood. I’ve seen trucks with extended hoods that look a bit long, and I wanted to stuff the big engine under there.
We got rid of the pump drives. The motor was originally from a D11 Dozer, and it was quite large, with all of the dozer drives and auxiliary pumps, oil coolers, and other things. We had to remove all of that, but were able get a bell-housing that would fit a 3408 you can buy in a semi. It had the right bell housing size, bolt pattern and other things. We were able to get the motor down into the cab with a little bit of ease, but we still needed four extra inches. We removed the entire hub, including the fan that runs electric fans on the custom-built radiator. When we did this, we were then able move the cab four inches back to accommodate the 389 Hood, and we were also able get it under there without having the hood skins stretched.
It’s not what you see in a truck or dozer anymore. We moved and made headers. A friend of mine from Fresno in California, Josh Wheland, who I went to college together, came out and built the headers.
Brad Moss and Forest Machine provided us with the valve covers and intake plume. The intake and exhaust system is completely factory. There’s not much factory about it, to be honest. But the air induction is a great example.
The truck is black, but the color is called Bomb Pop from Paint Huffer. They do some work on it and we tweaked a bit more to make sure it was the only one with it. The green is the same. I don’t remember the name of the green, but it starts with Kawasaki and then they add a special pearl to some House of Colors stuff. We tweaked the design a little more and added a silver pinstripe. My oldest daughter, Kendall came up with this stripe design. We both discussed colors and settled on this. I probably influenced it a little more than she would have liked, but the result was awesome.
This truck is the only one that has a computer operating system. We didn’t quite have enough time to finish the interior the way we wanted it, especially the dashboard, but it is all touchscreen. We were able to build a screen that runs from side to side of the truck. It’s a 4K iPad display. All the gauges will be displayed virtually. We’ve written all the code and done all the stuff for monitoring all of our pressures, temperatures, speed, RPMs and all the air pressures. We’re going display everything that you’d expect from a full gauge package for semis on the dash. All the switches, which would normally be toggles, rockers, or similar, are virtual. This means that you can turn on all the stuff, right down to the ignition, with just a simple touch of the screen.
It’s going be biometric when we’re done. So it will have a thumbprint scanner and on the outside, it will pop the door open. When you enter, the thumbprint reader will start up the computer, and it will go through its power-up signal. We hired a graphic artist to create a startup sequence so that when you start the truck, it sounds like many modern vehicles.
We’ve tried to push ourselves to do things we haven’t done before, to evolve, and to do some things we haven’t done yet. I think we’ve succeeded in some of this. It’ll get some refinement for sure, but time just ran out. It was 10 and a 1/2 weeks before we knew it. We started stacking 6 inch blocks of foam. It looked like something Fred Flintstone would have had. Now it looks like a dash. I’m proud of it, to be honest. It’s a messy job, shaping and grinding all of that with a grinder. It’s fun. It’s just like high school, trying to learn and refine your craft. You come up with an idea and then implement it.
As we walk back you’ll see what we did to the rear end to get the pickup to sit as low as needed.
Matt Cole :What is the ground clearance of it?
Dustin Dickerson :17-and-three quarters from the bottom of frame to the ground, when it is aired out. So pretty dang low. We designed and welded all the cross members in the shop. All of these are quarter-inch sheet steel. They started out as a 5 by 10 sheet of 1/4 inch steel. We laser cut it, and then the guys bent it, formed it, and made it into something. We boxed in the frame after we put in our cross members and other stuff. I knew that I didn’t need a belly plate or deck plate, if I was going to box in the frame. It’s silly, but it gives it a new look. We put so much work into getting the drive shaft on top. I couldn’t cover it all.
We built the rear suspension, but did not use deck plates. It was a little hard to tell, but when I drew it on the computer, the CAD program, that it looked like an old locomotive. I thought it was pretty cool. This kind of solidified the design. I try not to just stick with my first drawing. I force myself to think of a few different concepts.
When you’re just doodling, you might come up something really cool. When I drew this and looked back, it looked like a big train with the big motor in the middle. I thought it was pretty cool. We went with it.
We worked our tails off in the shop. This truck was built in just 10 and a 1/2 weeks. None of these ideas or not all of these ideas are mine. I have a great team in the shop, and without them this truck would not be here.