10-4 Magazine May 2024

12 10-4 Magazine / May 2024 “STORM SURGE” The entry built by Dustin Dickerson and the crew at Dickerson Custom Trucks (DCT) based in Thorntown, IN is called “Storm Surge” – and boy what a storm surge it created! Dustin has been building trucks since 2013 when he made a blue and silver Peterbilt with a matching end dump called “Bilt To Be Noticed” as a rolling business card for his new venture (it was also featured on our November 2013 cover). Since then, Dustin and everyone at DCT have built several well known and popular trucks that have placed them firmly in the center of the truck building world, but they pride themselves on their paint work, fabrication, and lighting the most. This wild ride created for the Build Off really stretched people’s imagination and introduced some unique modifications to the world of truck customizing. Things like an independent front suspension, a completely touchscreen dash, and a monster motor under the hood, set this rig apar t from just about anything we’d ever seen. Featuring 10 coats of clear and paint, the main pearl and candy “Bomb Pop” color sometimes looks black, while other times it looks blue, purple, or brown. And the four striking stripes, designed by Dustin’s 14-year-old daughter Kyndal, painted with a modified Kawasaki green color outlined with silver, really set everything off. Star ting with a stock 1996 Peterbilt 379 that was in “good” condition, not much of this truck is “Peterbilt” anymore. With several trucks in the shop being customized for customers, they did not star t working on this truck until early January 2024. In fact, they did everything in just 10.5 weeks! And even though the truck was in good shape, they wanted it to be perfect, so every exterior panel was replaced or rebuilt. After stretching the truck four feet (to 318 inches), they notched the frame to get it lower and then boxed in the rails to clean things up. Custom rear suspension mounts, dreamed up by Dustin with a sor t of old locomotive look, were built and installed. Wanting no deck plate and a level driveshaft running between the frame rails, DCT built “cradle style” crossmembers that are mounted underneath the driveline. But one of the “biggest” things they did (literally) was drop a 1,000-hp V12 Caterpillar 3412 out of a D11 dozer, painted green to match, with over 3,450 ft-lbs. of torque, into the truck. Much of the “eye candy” on this truck could be found under the hood. In addition to the giant green engine, which was fitted with totally custom stainless header pipes, leading to dual turbos, one on each side, with K&N style under hood intake filters, and ultimately exiting the engine compar tment via a true dual exhaust, the truck was also fitted with a totally custom independent front suspension, complete with “A” arms and no