Celebrity Machines owner Travis Bell was able to get his hands on a pretty awesome custom Toyota SR5 pickup truck, turned into a Ferrari Testarossa.
The automotive world is a fascinating place. Especially when it comes to the world of custom cars. There is an abundance of weird and wonderful custom machines out there that many of us may never know exist. Not all of these custom cars are worth looking at. However, as he told the VINwiki YouTube channel in Car Stories, Travis Bell found one worth buying. This wasn’t some totally insane custom muscle car or supercar. It was a handmade Ferrari pickup truck.
Yes, you read that right. A custom, handmade Ferrari pickup truck. This all stemmed from the craze of having a Mazda roadster pickup truck, that could have a custom body kit on it to make it look like a Ferrari Testarossa. Yes, that really was a thing. In recent years, people have been flocking to get a hold of those original trucks. Many of them are sadly sat in fields or graveyards rotting away. Bell thought it would be very cool to get his hands on one of these custom trucks. That might seem mad to us, but it looks like they are a lot of fun.
Getting Your Hands On A Custom Ferrari Truck
The idea to get one of these trucks began in 2017 for Bell, as he started looking into getting his hands on one. The craze was first called mini trucking, as they were effectively mini pickup trucks. As he was approaching 50 years old, Bell felt like he wanted to get one of these small trucks. In 2017 though, this is when he came across a Toyota pickup. And this Toyota pickup truck was all dressed up like a Ferrari. It also looked like it had a custom, handmade body kit on it.
Bell wasn’t quite sure where this truck was actually located. It looked like it was in a retirement community in Florida. Bell was able to get a rough idea of where the truck was, thanks to the guy’s house and his house number. Effectively, the senior citizen who owned the truck was the second owner of it and was not driving at the time when Bell discovered it. The truck would end up at an RB Swap Shop and this is when it started to deteriorate and get worse as time went on.
Real Ferrari Turn Signal Lights Make The Truck Even Cooler
Taking a closer look at the pickup truck, and it turns out it had real Ferrari Testarossa turn signals, emblems and lenses in it. So whoever built it, built it up with ordinal parts. Bell was really determined at that point that he would have to take it. At this point, the truck was then advertised on Facebook Marketplace, so he said he would give more over the asking price for it in order to get it. That was all done pretty quickly, and soon he was the proud owner of this incredible pickup truck.
More photos started to crop up of the pickup truck, wearing the same Florida license plate it had when Bell bought it. What he was able to find out was that it was actually built up by an Asian gentleman who owned a karate studio. This gentleman however had a stroke in his studio and had sadly passed away. He was somewhere in his 30s, and his widow had it for a few years, before it was then sold to this senior citizen. It’s now back in its original home state of Indiana, and Bell loves Toyota pickup converted to be a Ferrari Tes as he is someone who believes that car’s have a soul.
An Unusual Pickup With Plenty Of Original Ferarri Parts
The truck still has many of the original parts the first owner put on it. It has its Orion subwoofers for example and some hydraulics in the front as well. Bell is rather stunned by it, as it is all built to a standard you would not believe. It is so well-built, you would think a professional shop had done this kit. The kit does weigh a lot, but it is a special one-off creation. And all made with Ferrari parts. It is a five-speed, 1985 Toyota SR5 pickup truck at its heart, with options like cruise control and a factory sunroof.
A Toyota SR5 Has Incredible Power Under The Hood
Despite the fact it is a Toyota at heart, it now has a very different engine. This custom pickup has a 22RE four-cylinder engine with tires that, as Bell says, are bigger than his hands. It is simply incredible. Bell is wondering what to do with the truck next, in terms of what engine goes in it now. But the truck will have a full restoration over the summer of 2023, and it will be all kept as original as possible. This all while trying to find out who really owned the truck before the senior citizen was able to get his hands on it.
