One Way Diesel Performance in Nacogdoches, Texas, is famous for a few reasons. For starters, it’s the focus of a show called Texas Metal’s Loud and Lifted, which you can watch on MotorTrend TV. If you don’t know about the shop from that, you might have seen its Cummins diesel-swapped Lamborghini Gallardo that went viral in 2023. However, about a year and a half ago, the shop blew up for all the wrong reasons as disgruntled customers aimed to shut it down forever. Those troubles still haven’t gone away as One Way Diesel’s owners were recently arrested for property theft greater than or equal to $300,000.
Chase Wells and his father, Tommy Wells, were arrested on March 27 by the Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Office. The two were booked at the county jail and quickly bonded out at $50,000 each, as the NCSO’s website shows they were released in less than 45 minutes.
Official indictment records obtained by The Drive show that both Wells family members are charged with unlawfully “acquiring or otherwise exercising control over” property from three different customers. In one instance, the property was held from roughly May 13, 2022, until May 18, 2024, while being valued at “$30,000 or more but less than $150,000.” Another involved property valued at “$2,500 or more but less than $30,000” that was kept between Jan. 1 and Oct. 2, 2024. The worst, however, involved the alleged withholding of property for more than five years with “the value of $150,000 or more but less than $300,000.”
Each indictment ends in saying, “And it is further presented that all of the amounts were obtained pursuant to one scheme or continuing course of conduct, and the aggregate value of the property obtained was $300,000 or more.”
Addressing the 1 Way Diesel Performance situation…
The Drive published a lengthy report on One Way Diesel in October of 2024. That story featured a firsthand account from Brad Ekstam of FASS Diesel Solutions, who commissioned the shop to build a six-door Ford F-450. He went on to create a smear campaign against One Way after it returned the truck with a laundry list of problems. Our story also highlighted the case of Diego Singleton, who says One Way kept his $50,000 deposit despite never working on his 1979 Ford. Neither Ekstam nor Singleton are mentioned in the recent indictments.
A trial date has not been set for either Chase Wells or Tommy Wells, though both cases will be carried out by the grand jury of Nacogdoches County. The proposed charges classify as first-degree felonies in the state of Texas.
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