Words: Kristie Real
Photos: Dale Martin
We love wheeling, normally in jeeps and buggies, but doing it in a single cab 1-ton would be a crowd pleaser!”
Sometimes you just want a real off-road rig and something that’ll perform up to your standards on the trails. Fab Fours CEO Greg Higgs is known for creating some of the most extreme and aggressive show rigs, but as an avid off-road enthusiast, he’s also big on building functional off-road machines. For DayLighter, the Ford’s only duty was to handle the trails like a boss. “We wanted a rig to off-road,” he details. “We knew that 44” boggers on homemade bead-locks was not a formula for a smooth commuter… but we have never been into the show truck game, either. We love wheeling, normally in Jeeps and buggies, but doing it in a single cab 1-ton would be a crowd pleaser!”
From the beginning they imagined an early ’90s-inspired lifted truck, so the vision started with a row of iconic KC HiLiTES lights across the top, thus the name DayLighter was born. While some of their builds are meant to unleash the haters of the Internet, DayLighter was not intended for this. “This was a man’s truck, so we went murdered-out for the exterior,” Greg admits. “We knew the truck would get our GRUMPER and VI-Cowl setup. And for the single-cab body, we figured the Ford was the best looking! She was bought from the dealer new just for this build.”
Working with their vast network of manufacturers, Greg and his team went to work on creating the ultimate man’s truck. As Fab Four’s first “stacked” truck, they stacked the suspension with their “no lift 40’” system in order to fit the massive tires with a relatively low height. “For 44s, she’s still very low,” he details. “Nobody can look at the Ford without smiling – nobody.” While much of the build was seamless, they did run into a bit of trouble adding the front locker and fabricated sliders. But since the rest was bolt-on Fab Fours products, they were able to knock it out in just a few days.
As their Easter Jeep Safari crunch build, they had their hands full trying to get it ready to go out and play with the other full-size trucks that crash the Jeep event. Considered one of their best builds, Greg admits that the Ford does well for what it is when it comes to actually wheeling. “But we prefer tackling nasty hard trails, so it ended up in between.” The team actually needed to bend the front housing given the extremely heavy wheel and tire combo with the crazy wheel offset, which was annoying, according to Greg. “We had to straighten the axle then gusset it all up.”
Although Greg loved how DayLighter turned out, they had to flip it to breathe life into another rig, but it’s still a favorite for the team.
