Meet the Ohio Farmer With a Sick Fleet of 6×6 Chevy Trucks
“All my daily drivers since 1997 have been 6×6, so this continues on,” he told us.
Not every man is like Bruce Bishop. That's because most people see 6x6 pickups as a novelty instead of suitable everyday vehicles, but here we are. The Ohio farmer currently owns four Chevrolets with three axles apiece, and as he tells me, he's daily driven one or another since 1997.
It started with a 1985 Chevy, which he added an extra driven axle to after a couple of years of ownership. Not many people were doing it back then, whereas now it's a go-to for tuners that want to sell 6x6 trucks for supercar money. You can see mentions of Bishop's Squarebody pickup in forum threads from the 2000s, and he still has it after more than two decades. It rocks a 535-cubic-inch big-block V8 with 4.10 gears and a pair of Detroit lockers, in case you were curious.
"Yeah, I do everything myself," Bishop tells me. "All the trucks have air-ride suspension, both rear axles drive, the front axle drives also. A lot of people do them with a tag axle in the back where one of them drives, but they're absolutely worthless when you do that."
Bishop uses his trucks for all sorts of jobs around the farm, so they're more than showpieces. He says he gets a new one every 10 years or so, which explains the 2005 Chevy Silverado 6x6 as well as the 2016 Chevy Silverado 6x6. Instead of waiting a few more years to add another to his fleet, he recently built one based on a 2004 Chevy that's recently gone viral.
"This is mainly a sand truck and ice cream getter," Bishop says of the 1,100-horsepower machine. "Everyone's first ride, they end up shaking for the next hour. It jerks the wheels on a 30-mph roll and carries them. It has 25 inches of suspension travel and doesn't bounce after a landing."
Here's a video for proof:
It's by far the wildest in Bishop's collection, with its 427-cubic-inch LS that's blown by a 4.5-liter Whipple. It sits all the way at the back, nestled inside the stainless steel frame that's made out of two-inch square tubing. Prestige Motorsports in Concord, North Carolina built the engine with in-house-developed cylinder heads, a custom Comp cam, and way more.
When Bishop isn't driving it around town, he's running the truck at Silver Lake Sand Dunes in Michigan. It's the only one that isn't a true 6x6 as its front axle doesn't drive, and that's on purpose. It still has air suspension and Detroit lockers out back, so don't worry—it gets around just fine. This truck is really deserving of its own article, but for now, just know it also has six-wheel steering and 3.5- by 18-inch King shocks that enable that crazy wheel travel.
It feels a little early to guess what might be the next addition to Bishop's stable, but one thing's for sure: these trucks are here to stay. He still owns his first car, a 1986 Jeep that's also on air suspension, which shows how long he holds onto his rigs. When he has a collection like this, it's hard to blame him.
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