1935 Ford Pickup From ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ Lives on as One Wild Trophy Truck
This 1935 Ford pickup is easily one of the most unique desert racers you’ll ever lay eyes on.
Back in 2019, Hobbs & Shaw carried the long-running Fast & Furious franchise in a different direction as a highly successful spin-off starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. As is the case with all F&F movies, there are plenty of cool cars to see in Hobbs & Shaw, including this very 1935 Ford pickup that famously pulls a helicopter in the film. Thankfully, it didn’t suffer the fate that most movie cars do either, as its current owner – Dennis McCarthy – was able to take possession of it after he and his dad built it for the big screen flick. Now, we’re getting a closer look at this truly wild build courtesy of a recent video from AutotopiaLA.
McCarthy has made some modifications to this 1935 Ford pickup since its movie days, all of which help it rip up the California desert like some modern, high-dollar rig. That’s because this really isn’t much of a 1935 Ford pickup at all, but rather, pieces of that model’s bodywork sitting on top of Pro 2 off-road race truck with a factory cab and fiberglass bodywork pretty much everywhere else, which has been extended to fit over the more modern underpinnings.
Though the suspension is set up for short course road racing, McCarthy and his father routinely take it out to the desert, where it performs quite well, even if that isn’t necessarily its intended use. The truck’s 37-inch General Grabber X3 tires provide a couple more inches than the movie version’s 35s and grip the sand quite well, even though it sits a bit lower than the average trophy truck.
As one might guess, there’s only really one detractor from this build, at least from a Blue Oval fan’s perspective – its powerplant, which is GM’s LS3 V8, though it pumps out a healthy 525 horsepower in stock form. This one has a bigger cam and some other modifications, however, that reportedly add another 100 ponies to that total. It’s mated to a TH400 automatic gearbox and a 9-inch rear end with a Currie housing for added strength.
Even though we’d obviously rather see a Ford powerplant under its elongated hood, this 1935 Ford pickup is easily one of the coolest desert racing builds we’ve ever seen. It also never fails to turn heads out there in a sea of UTVs and Jeeps, as the owner mentions, mainly because when was the last time you saw a vintage Blue Oval off-road build like this – other than the movies?
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