‘Dirty Money’ a rich rat rod

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This article was published 11/10/2019 (2251 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OAK LAKE — After nine months of intense labour and planning, an Oak Lake team is ready to drive their one-of-a-kind custom rat rod to Las Vegas to compete in the renowned International RATical Rod Build Off.

When Dwayne Wiltshire first set eyes on the mobile bank truck that would be transformed into “Dirty Money,” it was a stripped-down body with only the most basic of components, he said, but he could see the jewel within.

He picked up the bank truck in Kansas and brought it back to Oak Lake.

From there, Wiltshire said he and his team of Brent Campbell, Doug Eichelberg, Dave Walk, Marty Delk and Shawn Taylor set out to create something that had never been seen before.

This is the first project of this kind Campbell has been involved with, he said, but he was happy to get on board because Dirty Money seemed like a great opportunity to collaborate with Wiltshire.

“It’s been challenging, but fun,” Campbell said.

He estimates that more than 10,000 man hours have gone into the creation of the rat rod.

“It was three or four hours every night, and then 12-hour days on the weekend,” Wiltshire said, adding they spent many a sleepless night planning on how to create his vision.

“There’s been a lot of hours sitting on chairs staring at it, saying, ‘what do we do,’” Campbell said.

The mobile bank sits on a 1991 Chevy chassis, Wiltshire said, adding that the front end is a 1947 Diamond-T with a Model-A front suspension.

“Diamond-Ts are extremely rare,” Wiltshire said. “Not a lot of them came to Canada, and the ones that are here are pretty sought after.”

The team added an Allison Automatic Transmission, extended the cowl, extended the front fender and added Diamond-T fenders to the back half of the bank.

“The body lines all flow together,” Wiltshire said.

A 6V53T Detroit diesel 225HP two-stroke diesel with 650 ft-lbs/TQ sits housed under the hood.

The back end boasts an air ride HD floor-length system from RideTech, Wiltshire said, while the front end is a completely custom-built system.

The transmission placed in the mobile bank truck is designed to be in a school bus and the output shaft has a massive universal joint. The team custom built the driveline along with an adapter to connect the engine to transmission because of this.

Dirty Money weighs in at 11,000 pounds now that the project has been completed.

As part of the RATical Rod Build Off they were unable to begin working on the project until Jan. 1 of this year, Wiltshire said, explaining that the team had a total of 280 days to bring their vision to life.

“By the first week of January, we were ripping and tearing and pulling apart the vehicle,” Wiltshire said.

They spent 10 days in July doing body prep, knocked down, sanded, primed three times for a special paint finishing off with an acid wash that gives the bank an aged look.

“In eight days, we went from totally unassembled to fully painted and fully assembled vehicle,” Wiltshire said, adding that there was a lot of pre-work before this.

Dirty Money was officially accepted as a SEMA show feature vehicle on Aug. 16.

The 2019 SEMA show runs from Nov. 5-9 and features automotive specialty products from around the world in a celebration of the automotive industry.

“You’ve already built for six months to the point you have half your life savings in this thing and you don’t even know if you have a spot,” Wiltshire exclaimed, adding that four teams have already dropped out in the last couple of months due to financing, timing and other factors.

“There’s some and they’re still not even assembled.”

The RATical Rod Build Off officially begins in Lincoln, Neb., and ends in Las Vegas, travelling more than 2,200 kilometres. However, Wiltshire and his team will drive Dirty Money to Lincoln from Oak Lake adding more than 1,300 kilometres to their trip.

“I bet that out of the 1,000-plus vehicles that are there, we’re the only ones that drive there,” Wiltshire exclaimed with a grin.

Part of the excitement of the drive is that participating vehicles are required to travel a minimum of 320 kilometres on a single tank of fuel.

“They’re going to find out who played by the rules, who can do the 200 miles,” Wiltshire said.

The Dirty Money team has faith in their vehicle can pull it off, Campbell said.

The first fuel stop is 147 miles from their departure point, Wiltshire said, which could potentially have some drivers sweating as they get closer to their destination and their fuel tanks gets lower and lower.

“Some of these vehicles are going to be pushing it.”

» ckemp@brandonsun.com

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