Thai Truck Shop Turns Ranger and Tacoma Pickups Into Super Duty, Tundra Lookalikes
It’s the best of both truck worlds: the lower price and smaller footprint of a midsize, with the big, badass looks of a full-size.
Auto shop Icon Cars in Chonburi, Thailand, is known for working over midsize trucks to resemble full-sized models from the U.S. market. So, if you've ever wanted the Big Truck look of a Ford Super duty without the purchase price, fuel consumption, and size restrictions that come along, it seems these guys can help with that.
In Thailand's auto market, full-size pickup trucks aren't readily available. Midsize trucks like the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux are par for the course instead. As with any automotive scene, though, there's always a taste for the exotic, and that's what Icon Cars provides, as seen on its Facebook page. The shop's bread and butter are converting models like the Ranger and Hilux into ersatz recreations of U.S. trucks like the Ford Super Duty and Toyota Tundra, respectively.
Icon Cars is particularly adept at reworking the Thailand market T6 Ranger. A new front clip, hood, and tailgate with "SUPER DUTY" stamped on appropriately, go a long way to changing the truck's aesthetic.
Big pumped arches, custom sidesteps, and wheel and tire packages also add to the look. Icon likes fitting its builds with a devastatingly rad front lip, though it does sacrifice ground clearance quite significantly. That doesn't stop you from wading through flooded roads, apparently.
The shop gives the Toyota Hilux a similar treatment, usually starting with the local Vigo trim. The tailgate, mudflaps, and other panels are swapped out for parts suitably emblazoned with "TUNDRA" as you'd expect. Again, there's a mighty bulging in the wheel arches, both front and rear, and the trucks are lifted nicely too. There's also something to be said about those deep-dish wheels, though one wonders what they do to the truck's handling.
Our favorite feature on the (previous-gen) faux-Tundras, though, is the glorious wide-mouth slot on the hood that just means business. In some of the company's builds it's used to tuck away a secret light bar.
There's nothing wrong with a little automotive cosplay, and Icon Cars is doing a roaring trade offering just that. Plus, there's something to be said for making a midsize truck look badass in a country where the full-sized version would probably struggle to get around due to narrow, motorbike-centric roads, and miniature parking spots.
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