Stealth Custom Series 2013 Holiday Contest

No doubt.

It was fun to post and a great excuse to rummage through my photo gallery.

Keep the stories coming gang!

 

Well, I'm not going to enter this because I don't deserve them lol. And, because I already have a set of five, which are awesome btw. Although it would be nice to have a beadlocked set.
Anyway, subscribed for the stories. And, a little motivation:

 

Wow! Quite a great selection of stories! Vin, you and your team deserve a super special thank you for doing this! I've been drooling over the Stealth 6's since I first saw them as I'm sure a lot of guys and girls have! I don't have as great of a story as most but I'll share since we all like stories
I first wanted a Tacoma in 06. A friend in the grade ahead of me got a SWB access cab 6spd over summer 06. I was instantly in love with Tacomas! SWB really isn't a color I'd want in a truck of mine but I really do like the way they look! Well with no job I obviously couldn't afford a new or even used second gen at that point. Fast forward to the next summer, I got a job at a local warehouse for a few weeks with the condition that after summer I was done working. Wouldn't be feasible to drive to work after school every day for an hour of work. After 3 weeks there the local service station/garage offered me a job working full time and as many hours as I wanted while I attended my senior year of HS!
3 weeks later I found a Toyota Celica GTS on autotrader 3 hours from home. Mom and dad and I jumped in the car and went to look at it. It was a 2000 and only had 29k on it! The guy had added all sorts of accessories and was asking 18k for it. The car had never seen snow or even rain! It was showroom spotless! Well, it was still too expensive So back to the car search. A week later I found a 1997 Dakota. 318 5 spd with 95k on it.

Loved that truck! Only add on was a tonneau cover knowing I wanted to upgrade to a Tacoma when I could. I had the Dakota about 2 years and could tell the clutch was going and it was nearing tire time. The clutch would slip pretty regularly and the rear end had clunked ever since the driveshaft bolts sheared off once taking off from a stop sign. Slowly too! Even had a few witnesses that said I didn't try to holeshot it. That ended up cracking the shell of the transfer case. Expensive mess up! Found out after I sold it the kid who bought it destroyed the rear end doing doughnuts haha Graduated HS a couple weeks later and passed on going to college. Didn't know what I wanted to do and really didn't want to go to school only to realize my passion didn't require that amount of education. Fast forward to Sept 09. Tried to get in on the cash for clunkers deal and was looking at Tacomas the whole time. Wanted an access cab 6spd a few months earlier. Well come sept and I went to a couple dealers and got a run around being only 19 years old and wanting to buy a 30k truck. Called a dealer 65 miles from home and the salesman said if I came in he could walk around the lot with me and we could decide what to look for. Rode up a couple weeks later and ordered a DCLB auto. Ended up with the first 2010 they sold!
Signed up on TW a few months later after realizing every google search for accessories came up with results from here! Added some stuff, made some changes and realized this was awesome!
Then I decided I wanted to change things. I was getting tired of working at the station putting in weird hours and missing a lot of fun with friends and family. Decided to go to trade school and be a draftsman! It was something I always enjoyed in HS but never followed through with. So I went to school for 16 months all the while making truck payments and scraping pennies together to get a few accessories while attending school. Also got new tires from my parents when the stockers wore out at all of 27k lol! After I finished school, I was able to attend my first group meet in Beech Creek! Had a blast and met some of the coolest people I know! Some of them are in this thread! Decided right then and there I wanted to make my truck more capable and start off roading!
Spin ahead to this spring/early summer. Met my now girlfriend of six months! I fell for her when she told me she really values family and friends then told me she loved my truck and really loves off roading! She seriously means everything to me! I had told her I was hoping to hit a deer and get a steel front bumper. Well the night of our first date I was driving her home and we hit a deer! I was so excited haha. She couldn't believe it!

In comes a Pelfreybilt!

Well 3 weeks ago I moved in with her! Been one of my best decisions ever! I decided modding will be back down to a minimum again. I still can afford to mod at will but am trying to be more responsible with money.
So that's where I am now. Since there might only be a couple people who read this whole thing I'll reward you with a couple pics since we all love pictures even more than stories!




And I know everyone wants pics of pretty ladies, so here's one of me with my beautiful GF:

Thanks again Vin for the opportunity to rep your awesome product, and Merry Christmas everyone!

 

Subbed, i dont deserve these wheels, although i hope to own a set one day to rep more TW vendors.

The stories have been good so far, lets keep that theme fellas!

 

I joined Tacomaworld shortly after purchasing my new tacoma, she was the first Superwhite 08 on the lot and i immediately fell in love. I knew right away i wanted to start modding this thing, i never realized how far it could possibly go, heres a picture of it shortly after 4 wheelparts had their way with it.

Then i met some crazy Az guys who wheeled pretty hard and i wanted to try it out, thats when the mod list exploded and i was over whelmed with things to do to the tacoma. I couldnt have asked for a better vehicle, its taken me wheeling in several states now, and has been in very south mexico even wheeling. Now that i'm a full time student trying to focus on my future more than my present, it has been really hard to work enough to have extra cash for mod money. I would love my tacoma to b e a true storm trooper, it's there except for one problem, these super shiney chrome wheels 4wheel parts put on! My goal for this truck is to be a nice DD, that can float through the desert and turn around the next day and bounce off armor in some nasty rock crawling courses.

Vin if i won your wheels it would pretty much complete my build and i would be so honored to run a set of wheels made by a fellow TW member!

SDHQ rebuilt my cross member and did an amazing job!

Stormtroopers FTW


Vin here you can see how good your wheels would look, especially when i anodize the bolts a shiny white!

Wheeling in Southern AZ



Wheeling in Sedona AZ


Pancake Rock in Alpine, CA


Lake Pleasant, Az


One last pic deep in the woods that i like!

 

I'm not looking at others. I'm not looking at others.. I guess ill vote for you

 

Thanks Andrew

 

My vote goes to one hell of a guy that I have met and is always down to help me out. Stefen t4coch4os. He has become a very close friend. Hope you win man.

I wish I could vote twice it would be for pat. Another great guy that deserves them aswell

 

I have an idea for them.. How about they buy a set, and get a set free.. That way they both get two free rims, and combine votes??

 

Back in the glory days of 2007, it was a hot March afternoon. I walked out of school to discover my Ford Taurus had a flat tire. Obscenities rose through the air as I looked in my trunk and realized my spare sitting uselessly in my garage. A dead cell phone in hand and no memory of phone numbers I started to make the six mile walk to work, with only an hour to do it. Stopping at a Circle K two miles into the trek, I was sitting inside staring out of the window, pounding a cold slushee to warn off the heat stroke that was settling in. And then it happened. It drove up in a glorious blaze of awesomeness and ruggedness. A black 1st Gen Tacoma Regular Cab, sitting with a modest lift, and some 33'' tires. At that moment, like Jimmy thinking with his dipstick, it hit me. I needed to ditch my car and buy a Tacoma. After a long afternoon of ass chewings and working on cars, I finally arrived home and had the talk with my old man. Much to my surprise he was all for it and assisted me in the purchase of a 2006 Tacoma Prerunner. Words could no describe how thrilled I was to finally own a truck. The ground clearance, the stance, the purr of a 2.7 4 cylinder under the hood, the wine of a already busted throw out bearing; it was pure bliss. Not after a month of owning my new prize in life, I took her out to 4 Peaks mountain in Arizona to see what she could do with one tire fire, out on the trail.

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Fast forward to 2009, still young and spunky, my Tacoma and I enlisted into the armed services of the United States Army. After six months of misery in Fort Leonardwood, Missouri, I was reunited with the love of my life, and we were headed for Fort Irwin, California. What a trip it was. Vast desert with trails heading in every direction. A whole new culture awaited us and we were eager to take part in the desert trail addiction. But before any trails could be conquered, a not so dry lake bed was waiting for us to rip through. She got her legs wet for the first time in a righteous field of mud.

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Ridicule and shame was talked upon my dear truck, and it became clear to me that as I tried to hold my own with a 4 hamster, 2wd truck, there would be haters. My beauty was under powered and under equipped for the terrain laid before us. A plan had to be constructed. There had to be solutions to put the nay sayers to rest. My truck was an underdog but was going to be transformed into a trail ripping machine.

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In April 2010 the Underdog and I were separated once again, as it was time for me to deploy to Afghanistan to fulfill my obligation as a defender of freedom and a bringer of hope. Many lonely nights would go by and there was one thing on my mind, "how do I get my truck to be a high speed dirt worthy machine"? After 4 months of no internet, no mail, and only 4-5 hours of sleep, I finally had the opportunity to research and devise a plan to modify my love and get her to where she deserved to be. Inspiration came in the form of 21'' of travel, at 4 independent wheels. An Oshkosh MATV.

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Enter Tacoma World. A huge network of information, great folks, and plenty of shenanigans. Where to start? Well, the new members thread of course . After digging through endless threads of long and mid travel trucks, I start to piece together the parts that would eventually make the Underdog what she is today. Purchasing parts while I was still deployed, I was sent pictures once a month of the growing pile of parts that waited for me in my garage. A year would go by and in April 2011 I came home but still had to wait for time to install parts. After two weeks of being home, my two best friends and I would take advantage of a 3 day pass to book it home to Arizona to install everything and roll back to Fort Irwin.

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A plethora of modifications later, she was finally ready to challenge the terrain that Fort Irwin had to offer. For the next two and half years, the Underdog and I would go on adventures all over southern California. We've met some great folks, been in some sticky situations, and have memories to share for the rest of our lives together.

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As I sit here and write this today, the Underdog sits docile and modest in her new purpose. She knows it is time to pound the pavement and get me through college. While our service to the country is over and we won't be seeing trails together any time soon, we know that there are still memories to be made. She is comfortable knowing her big brother, my 1988 Toyota Pickup (the Relic), will treat me well in his purpose to guide me through Arizona trails.

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Thanks you for reading my story and happy trails.

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Fuck.. Now I have to vote for you too..

 

If my truck gets 1,000 like it can have a name!


I was started off early with Lincoln Logs, Legos, Erector Set, car repairs and the love for classic cars. My mothers first car was a 1967 Mustang 287. My father worked at a salvage yard as a side job, raced my mothers Mustang in SCCA slolem racing and SCCA Road Rally, and did all of the repairs on our various cars. My brothers and I were always in the back seat of the Road Rally, on the sideline of the slolem racing, and usually climbing in cars at the salvage yard taking parts off.

Growing up I helped my dad as much as I could with any car repairs. He always had something to work on, the man can't sit still, whether it was rebuilding a carburetor or an entire engine. A few of the cars I've been part of are my dads 1967 chevy C10, our neighbors '69 Camero (sadly wrecked and twisted the frame), 78 Mustang Cobra (sadly had to sell it to move, kid seized the motor), 1979 Chevy conversion (yes with the shag carpeting, able to run the autobahn in Germany), and an El Camino among others. Finally after I turned 18 and moved back to the US I got my drivers license and got the keys to my mothers Mustang! I drove like a bat out of hell in this magnificent car until I started College!
[picture of the mustang]

Moving forward to College I bought my first truck, a 1997 Ford Ranger Manual transmission. I bought it in Pennsylvania and learned to drive a manual on my way back to school in North Carolina. This truck was a tank but showed me the limitations of a "Grandpa" truck. Somehow I managed to get it up the very degraded firetower road with only nearly ripping off the side steps. Sadly one morning I managed to flip this truck over in a ditch. Luckily there were no injuries or property damage.


This unfortunate accident prompted me to find a new vehicle. After much looking at another Ranger and 1st gen Tacomas I spotted a TRD Sport that was lifted and had 'Blingy' rims. I fell in love with Tacomas after seeing that one. Unfortunately the price was too high, it had hideous rims and the composite bed was cracked. After a lot of browsing I found a seller that had multiple Tacomas in various configurations and took my friends and girlfriend along to reassure what I wanted.

I have owned my Tacoma since November 2010 and to date it has no name. If I get 1,000 likes my truck will finally be named. This truck has been my lifeline, gotten me through everything I have thrown at it. After spending these last couple years on the forum and taking rides in other trucks I know I haven't even scratched the surface. I have a laundry list of things I want to do to my truck but time and money are limiting what I can do. Everything I do to my truck I am doing the "right way" and so that it looks as factory as possible. From the LED lighting to the ABS disable switch I feel that these are things that should have come factory on our trucks. Vin and SCS wheels have come up with an amazing design on these wheels and I think they would help push my truck in the direction I am aiming for.

Please vote for my truck, at least to give it a name!



He makes me hold his hammock



See I need some wheels!!


Wired in an AUX audio plug


Installed OME 885 and nitrochargers


Blue seas fuse panel install


OMD Chevy Leaf mod


Working on me while we're trying to go trail riding (blew the ABS fuse)
*RIP my friend on the right, Sadly he was killed on his motorcycle while returning to work from his lunch break.


We got everything working again


Freaking cold but we had fun

 

If I had to vote right now it would be a hard decision Pat, Stefen, and Matt are all great dudes and deserve them. But if I had to vote it would be for Pat I know he has been talking about these wheels since the first day I met him. He as always been able to help me with anything I have asked and continues to share his knowledge with me.

 

I'm loving all the entries so far. For those that choose not to enter and feel that there are more deserving folks out there, I you. This is what this contest is all about. Hopefully, by the end of all of this, we can round up 10 entries and through the stories, experiences, and adventures, we can collectively vote for the most deserving owner and truck.

 

Much appreciated brutha! I too would have a hard time voting but Pat would get my vote as he's the only other person than me that I know of that is in love with these wheels! He needs to get rid of the chrome wheels finally haha

 

I love that my old grill from my 99 is on your truck now.

 

I just wanted to say that I think this is a awesome contest.

I believe you are the first person I purchased something from here on TW and every dealing with you has been top notch from then to now.

I am not going to participate in this contest, but just wanted to share my experience dealing with Vin and SCS Performance.