Who Spends $500,000 on an 80-Year-Old Dodge Truck?

Automakers have been packing their trucks with all of the luxury and technology they can fit in recent years, and pushing up prices to match. It’s not hard to find a $100,000 pickup or SUV at your local Ford, Chevy, GMC or Ram dealer, but if everyone is driving one, are they even special?That’s where Desert Power Wagons comes in. The North Carolina-based custom builder turns ordinary trucks into bespoke creations that could rival the world’s most exotic vehicles. Not new trucks, but World War II-era Dodge Power Wagons. The hulking heavy-duty model was used by the military and transitioned into a workhorse in the postwar years. Today, their classic styling stands apart from the latest models, but their charm can quickly evaporate once you get behind the wheel, because they still drive like 80-year-old commercial vehicles.Desert Power Wagons remedies this by preserving the style while updating practically everything under the skin. The result is what is known as a “restomod” which is short for “restored and modified.”One of its recent creations took 3,500 labor hours to complete. It wears the wagon body of a WC-53 command car, which has been converted from a two-door to a four-door and tweaked to fit on an all-new frame equipped with a suspension system that uses high-performance off-road shocks and springs.Modern technology is integrated into the classic interior. Desert Power WagonsIt rides on off-road tires that are a yard tall and is powered by a Cummins 6.7-liter turbodiesel six-cylinder engine from a late model Ram Heavy Duty truck that is rated at 370 horsepower and 850 pound-feet of torque, which is three times more than the truck’s original motor.The interior retains its slab metal dashboard, but it now houses digital instruments designed with a retro design and a central touchscreen that controls a 1,600-watt audio system. The modern seats are heated, ventilated and upholstered in distressed leather that would look at home on a turn-of-the-century armchair. The turn-of-the-century before World War I, that is.Pricing varies, but this particular truck listed for $499,000, and it’s not hard to imagine the type of customer who bought it.“The one-percent club,” Desert Power Wagons owner Aaron Richardet told The New York Sun.“I actually do a lot of things in New York and a lot of business wherever the money is, but it’s for the people that love Americana. They love big trucks, and they like uniqueness.”This WC-53 has been converted from a two-door to a four-door. Desert Power WagonsDespite being advertised as “heirloom-quality investments,” Mr. Richardet said most of his customers range in age from 50 to 70 and buy their trucks to use them, for work and leisure. They come to him from all across the country, from Boston to Austin. Right now, his shop has eight new ones being built.“I’ve got one in Long Island, he’s a commercial fisherman and he uses it every day to go back and forth to the dock and then to haul traps,” he said. “I get to see their collections because I deliver each one of them myself.”Their garages are usually full of Ford Broncos, Land Rover Defenders, Corvettes, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and $1.5 million RVs. “Most of them have planes, jets, helicopters and the normal stuff that goes with that lifestyle,” he said.One place he doesn’t find them often is at collector car auctions, where it is common to see other vehicular follies trading hands with barely any mileage on their odometers.“I hardly see any of mine hit the secondary market, it’s just not where they usually end up, being the pride and joy of their collections,” he said.

Who Spends $500,000 on an 80-Year-Old Dodge Truck?

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