In 1985 David Mattingly built the monster truck "High Roller". After many years and many owners it was on the verge of fading away in to history. It was brought to me for a full restoration. I think it turned out pretty well, considering the shape it was in.

This is the truck from 1986.



After a few owners had it, it was put up on 66s.



It was brought to me to restore to as close to original as possible. The chassis was so bad, it was just easier to start over. Too many mistakes were made over the years to correct, so a clean canvas was chosen for the new build.



With the new chassis completed, it was time restore the body and get the running gear back in shape. The engine and trans was built by someone else, but I got to build the engine mounts, frame stands and cross members to make it all fit.





The day finally came for it to go home. It's big reveal / unveiling was at the 4wd Indy Jamboree. We had a LOT of positive feedback there. It was a LOT of work to pull this off in 3 1/2 months, but we got it done. The original driver, Rodman Hobbes was there to see the truck for the first time in 30 years. Also, the original builder's daughter was there to see it for the first time since she was just a little kid of about 6 years old. It was an emotional weekend for everyone involved.

 

Looks great Alan.... as all your work does.

 

Thanks, Rich! It turned out as nice as I hoped it would.

 

Its a wonderful thing to see such a piece of history back in full glory.

 

That's great to see. I was too young for that era as I grew up in the 90's but like every kid I loved monster trucks.

I had a book called "Monstrous Trucks" that I got from my Grandpa that featured a ton of the "pure" era of monster trucks. That book was VERY dentside heavy and sealed my love of these trucks. It's awesome to see this one and others getting restored back to their original state. Nothing like seeing a monster sitting on leaf springs and OEM frame with a mint Ford steel body.

It's amazing what they are doing with the monsters now, but this is just pure cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

I'm curious about the fender flares. They look similar to Bushwhacker flares, but they look bigger. Are they custom made?

 

The flairs are a bit of a story. Midwest 4x4 (Bob Chandler's 4x4 shop) made a lot of their own parts. Wheels, roll bars, and fender flairs. This had an original set of midwest flairs, but they were hacked up when the fenders were cut to put the 66" tires on it. The body for Bigfoot 2 belongs to a guy named Eli Mann. It still had a decent set of midwest flairs on it, so they were used to make new molds and these flairs are the first set out of those molds.

Incidentally, the blower is off of the Bigfoot Ranger, too.

 

Bushwhacker fender flares

 

Do you have any more photos of the High Roller from either present day or past?

You mentioned the blower is off the Bigfoot Ranger. Does that truck still exist? The Bigfoot website shows that it was sold to a private party years ago.

It looks like the original wheel/tire package was similar to the Bigfoot Ranger, is that an accurate assumption? I'd guess that finding an original set of those has to be difficult!

 

Nice job Alan, looks awesome.

Jeff

 

Wow nice job, if that,s what I had to do everyday work wouldn,t seem so bad.

 

You can see the whole restoration and photos past and present here:

https://www.facebook.com/crushorama/

Bigfoot Ranger did some time with an S-10 body, but the chassis was sold to a guy named Francis in New York. Francis is the guy that had Bigfoot 4x4 build him a replica of BF 1. In fact, these tires and wheels on High Roller where off of the replica. The wheels that are on it now are the same hoops (rims) that were put on the replica for Francis, but I had to cut the centers out and weld in deuce and half centers to fit High Roller. (the replica has 5 ton axles under it.) The original wheels were also Midwest wheels. (made by Bigfoot's shop) Don't quote me on this, but I think the wheels were off of the Bigfoot shuttle. (Aerostar) The wheels wound up somewhere in Kentucky and Jeff (the owner of High Roller) is trying to track them down now.

...but back to Bigfoot Ranger, ....Francis intends to restore it back to when it was the dark blue Ranger. Ranger is also the same truck as Ms. Bigfoot, they just painted it Bigfoot blue later on and renamed it Bigfoot Ranger.

 

Job WELL done Alan. That truck looks great. But I'm curious though. If the wheels on this truck are from the BF1 clone, what happened to that truck? I've also heard that the guy who owns the BF1 clone owns a few other BF alumni. Is that true?

 

Yes, he does. He's waiting until a couple of them are at least further along in the resto process before he shows off what he has, so I'll let him publish the toys he has. I'm not sure why he took the 48s off unless he went to 66s and didn't want these anymore. They still have the nubs on the tires and are like brand new. He said he even did a few car crushes with them, but I'll be darned if I can find any evidence of that by looking at them.

 

I love what you've done here Alan! It's great to see these trucks similar to the "classic" Bigfoot we grew up with. Very excited!