Minitruck modifications
A minitruck is a compact pickup built for light duty usually, such as Chevrolet S-10s, Ford Rangers, Toyota Hiluxs, Nissan pickups, Holden Rodeos and Mazda B2000s, B2200s and B2600s, Mitsubishi Triton that have been modified and customized often with an emphasis on achieving the lowest ride height possible.
Customizing compact trucks is a lifestyle/hobby referred to as Minitrucking. This trend started in the 1980s and has grown in popularity in the following decades. The magazine Minitruckin was published as the popularity of this style increased.
Original modifications included lowering the truck by any means possible, such as heating or removing leaf springs, flipping leaf springs upside down, notching the frame, adding air shocks, cutting coils from coil springs, and cranking down torsion keys to establish a lower ride height. These methods usually result in a harsh, bouncy ride.
As minitrucks increasingly grew in popularity, modifications became more extreme. Modern modifications include airbag suspension, custom A-arms, 4 link, 3 link wishbone, and even 5 link cantilever systems mostly designed & modeled after popular on and off road modified suspension systems body drops (channeling), (door handle) shaving, suicide doors, removable hardtops, custom paint jobs, custom frames and suspensions. Most examples of these trucks have very large wheels up to 24 inches in diameter with low profile tires. With current airbag technology and modern suspension design, ride quality has increased and in many examples surpassed the original equipment offerings.
Minitrucks and Minitruckers have also established an activity all their own, unlike lowriders whose goal was to achieve lowest possible ride height without touching the ground, some minitrucks are specifically designed to lay the frame rails or pieces of metal to touch the ground before the frame does on the ground at any given point and often used to "drag" the vehicle while driving causing sparks to fly out the back of the truck. While "draggin'" is not accepted and applied to all minitrucks, it is a very big attraction to most minitruckers. The most common minitrucks are Chevrolet S-10 pickup, Nissan Hardbody, Mazda B2200, and Toyota Hilux/Tacoma of any year, while they're not the only type of truck used they tend to be the most common.
There are many clubs of Minitruckers such as Earth Scrapes, Wellington Trucking Friends (WTF), Twisted Koncepts, Vertically Challenged, Severed Ties, Hypnotic Customs, D2E (down2earth),NO REGRETS, Local Disturbance, Subsonic Kustomz, sadistic Kustomz, Relatively Low, Negative Camber, Sunset, LOSTBOYS,Lower Level Customs, Aftermath, Pharcyde Customs, Freaks of Nature, Negative Altitudes and Magical Mini's to name a few. These clubs are more like a family to their members, doing everything together from drinking beer to building full custom show trucks. Sunset was started over 35 years ago.