TheTacoShack - LT Rock Crawler Flatbed Build

thread revival and we need an update OP

 

agreed

 

Elijah is the owner and he lives in Texas now and doesn’t own the truck anymore

 

BUILD AND LIFE UPDATE :

Wow - well it has been quite literally years since my last post in TW. As of yesterday, I have been a Texas Resident for three years exactly and my life is just now beginning to reach a new normal(hilarious that it is happening during a pandemic but that is beside the point). Some backstory on me, my name is Elijah Nesbitt and I bought the Taco Shack while I was working as an Expert Level Toyota Technician at Buena Park Toyota in Buena Park, CA. I had just graduated from TTEN at Cypress College nearby, I was living in my first apartment and I bought the truck after wanting a Tacoma since I was a kid. I immediately started building the truck as you have all seen, I used the Taco Shack quite literally every single weekend offroad going on solo excursions or with friends. The Taco Shack was always my daily driver while I was building it , I would zip tie my taillights, wiring loom pieces etc to my frame and drive it during the day and then cut the zipties off while working on it during the evenings and weekends. During this time of me building Taco Shack I started dating my old high school gf again, around the same time as we started dating again, I got a job offer to come join a specialized team at Toyota Corporate at their LFA Garage. It was only a contract position for 9 months but I was willing to drop everything and drive an hour each way in traffic for that opportunity. One problem with driving an open wheel semi exo-ed Truggy like TacoShack is that CHP LOOOOVE to give you fix-it tickets, this made driving Taco Shack as a daily a real pain. Six months into my 9 month contract, I was approached by my managers and they offered me a full time team member position at Toyota Corporate , the hangup was that I needed to relocate with the rest of the company in just 3 months after accepting my new position to Dallas area. Me and my then fiance found a house about an hour away from the new Toyota HQ in Plano, TX and we made the move in early October 2017.

WHAT HAPPENED TO TACO SHACK ??

During the time of getting back with my ex and working at Toyota , me and her had bought a 2005 Ram 2500 4x4 6-Speed Manual as a tow rig for the family toy hauler and dirt bikes, this became my daily driver in texas and Taco Shack sat in the front yard for a few months as my ex was still looking for employment. She was really not a fan of the flatbed build and since we were taking it out to the desert fairly often before moving, we had talked about the build and I decided we would move the build towards a more "palatable" 4x4 PreRunner-Esque build. The flatbed that Shmellfab had designed sadly ended up coming off and was replaced with a full pipe bed cage that me and my friend Shaun welded up in his shop, The front end of Taco Shack remained the same but I bought a pair of fiberwerx front fenders off of a TW member, they were badly damaged and I ended up learning how to do fiberglass repair to fix them . I trimmed them to fit over the fender bars since I did not want to lose their functionality (still to this day the fender bars were my favorite detail about Taco Shack). Taco Shack drove around California and Texas with a naked full pipe bedcage for over a year until me and coworker in Texas spent a weekend fabbing up some hoops and support brackets to float some FiberWerx Bedsides off the frame of the truck. After this the TacoShack really looked just like any other Long Travel Desert Tacoma we have all seen, from behind the truck still looked wild with the full bedcage but without the flatbed and exposed exo the truck wasnt the same to me. At this point the Cummins had been sold and I was driving a company lease Tundra as my daily, my ex was driving TacoShack as her daily and she was thoroughly enjoying the fully glassed look of TacoShack. After lots of hard conversations in August 2019 me and my ex decided to split up as she wanted to move back to California and continue her life there. As we separated after 5 years, we had alot to split up and I couldn't give her my company Tundra we decided she would keep TacoShack and drive it back to California. As far as I know she still daily drives it all around Southern California. So TacoShack as this thread knew is sadly no more.

WHATS NEXT ? TACO SHACK 2.0

Over the past 5 years I have learned an untold number of lessons, financially, personally, and as a technician and offroader. Some of the projects that I have been an integral part of since Taco Shack have taught me more then I could ever imagine. I have since become a Master Diagnostic Technician for Toyota Corporate, the LFA Garage has shut down but we still work on them here at HQ. I am now a lead technician on our PR and marketing project teams here in Plano. Pre-Covid , I was traveling all over the US and even internationally supporting our events which have spanned from the new Corolla launch to being the main driver for GXOR in Ouray Colorado last year at FJ Summit. My Tundra is essentially all stock its a 1794 Edition but i've outfitted it with TRD Pro Suspension, wheels and skidplate. I will be done with my Tundra company lease in March 2021 and I am very excited to announce I will be getting back into a Tacoma after 3 arduous years.... I plan to take all the lessons ive learned from TacoShack, GXOR , The Baja 1000 Winning Tundra and all the other builds I've been a part of to build my ultimate Tacoma. This upcoming build will be a lifetime vehicle for me , I have plans to offroad in all 50 states with this upcoming truck (with shipping it to Hawaii being the final leg). I apologize for dropping the ball on this build thread for a couple years. I will be posting a ton of pictures of the build here just so you all can see how Taco Shack ended up and will hopefully get you excited for Taco Shack 2.0 coming March 2021 .

Thanks y'all - I Hope to see you all out on the trails soon

 

Here are 3 pictures of back when I repaired the fiberglass front fenders, trimmed to fit the fender bars and then recoated them White when installed on TacoShack (notice the lack of rear bedsides on the newly fabbed bed cage)

 

Six months of Texas weather did a number on the raw bedcage (after making the bedside hoops and supports the cage was Stripped coated and protected )

 

The TacoShack is greatly missed but I am excited to build another one next year. I am looking forward to taking you all with me on the next build . I have a lot of pictures and updates on my instagram @elijahluke , I will continue to post Taco Shack pictures here as a build thread in memorium (not that Taco Shack is dead...just no longer mine)

 

Some old pics of Taco Shack at its prime ! Getting battered every weekend in the Cali desert and Asuza Canyon

 

Here is me wheeling GXOR at FJ Summit 2019 , probably my favorite work project of all time. Such a great experience and really brought back to life my passion for building another Taco Shack

 

Some progress pics of the 2015 Baja 1000 winner Tundra that was crashed in 2016 , I am in process of restoring it back to race worthy with a small team of 5 guys.

 

This is how Taco Shack looks to this day . We will use these two pics as the "end of build" for this truck ! Thanks to everyone who helped with the build and everyone who was encouraging and involved along the way ! Can't wait to start 2.0 with all of you !

 

What’s up buddy! Hopefully I get to be part of the new build in some way or another. Miss you brother. I’ve been crazy busy at work but we’ll talk soon!

 

You ABSOLUTELY will be ! Let's talk soon and get a rough plan together. I'll be in the South Bay visiting family over halloween weekend, if you're around I'll swing by !