Why This 1972 F100 Cost $250,000 to Build

We have a 1972 Ford F-100 Patina and we just spent $250,000 bringing this back to life. I bet you want to know how. Let's break it down. Hey guys, Jason with Faturn Garage and we do want to talk about this 1972 Ford F-100 and how we got to spend over $250,000 to restore this thing. That is a loaded question. A lot of people wonder why. We have the guys that are probably already saying, "I could build that in my garage for 50,000." Right? We got that group over here. We've got the group that says, "Why would you spend that much money? Go buy a brand new truck. I got two of them." Right? And then we've got the guys that are saying, "Why not just buy a brand new Ferrari?" The guys that can build it in your garage. You know what? You guys are awesome. We sell a lot of parts that we assist you guys to build stuff in the garage. And so that's a a group of people who have a lot more time than they have maybe money sometimes, or they just love to build. You might find a used motor for about 10 grand. You might put new chassis suspension on on the original chassis. So, you're kind of upgrading it and then put it back together. You're going to wire it up. You're going to do all the plumbing, the fuel lines. You're going to get a gas tank out of an old Mustang. It's going to be awesome. It might have a Crown Vic front suspension, whatever it is, right? It's It's awesome. You did it. Awesome. You had all the strength going into it. And we really applaud you guys for doing that. And you can save and you can do it for a lot less. Then we have another group of people who are just wondering why the hell would you ever do that? Why would you ever spend that much money on anything? Well, let's be honest. If you have an old classic and you know what it's about, these can be pretty meaningful to you. And there's a lot of people that just love the styling and and how good they look. And they probably already have a newish truck that they have that's a daily and they're thinking about memories with grandpa and and and my first kiss was in the 1972 Ford F100. and you just want to remember that time. Maybe you drove it in high school, right? So, the reality is is there's all different reasons why you're in love with your classic and you're going to want to spend some money on it and enjoy it and and you already have something kind of new that you drive and so this is a project. You've been dreaming about it. Your wife hates it. You love it. You know, it's that source of tension in your marriage or relationship, right? But all marriages got tension and this is a great one, right? Then we got people that honestly they've been really successful. They have more money than they do time. They want to spend time with their family flying in their jets, whatever it is, right? And they just say, "Hey, I always love these old classics. I had when I was young. I want to get one built right. All new components, no issues. I could jump in it and go anywhere, and I don't want to do any of the work myself." Enter Fat Fender Garage. Right. So, here we are. And this is how we got here is we had the ability to put a project like this together. and purchase all new stuff. Now, we didn't paint it, right? We we could have spent a lot more money on this, but we didn't. But let's talk about what it takes to get to that $250,000 number, right? And I'm going to tell you right now, it's a lot of brand new parts. It's a lot of cool stuff, and it is a ton of labor that goes into it. So, we're going to kind of walk around and talk about it, discuss it. And so, hopefully this was helpful for you. Yes, you don't have to spend 250. Yes, you can spend more than 250. We've done these projects all the way up into seven figures, right? And so it really just depends on what it is you want out of a project. How cool you want to be? How unique do you want to be? And how much money do you want to spend to get that, right? And so the canvas is broad. There's a lot you can do to these and you don't have to spend 250 like we talked about. But let's talk about how we got here on this one. All right. So we started with the foundation of a brand new chassis. Hopefully you've seen some of those chassis videos. If not, maybe they'll pop one of those up in the screen that says, "Watch this chassis video right now." Um, but we start with a brand new chassis. So, brand new chassis. It's a level two chassis. If you notice how low this truck is, it sits pretty low. And so, it allows us to get um a good low center of gravity and allows us to make it kind of a little extra cool. But, as you know, every time you go low, everything comes up, right? So, all the suspension has to have clearance. And we'll talk about how much work that is. And so, brand new chassis, brand new Right Tech coilovers. We've got a brand new Coyote motor. So, let's pop the hood and let's check it out. All right, so brand spanking new Ford Crate motor, Gen 3 Coyote 10-speed automatic transmission. And if you know anything, right out of the gate, you're spending about $25,000 just to get that control pack and everything just just to get it shipped here, right? So, you're going to have a ton of money. You've got brand new radiators. You got brand new small fans. And with all that said and done, because it's lowered, we had to custom build and design some nice new inner fenders and fit all that in here, right? So, that takes a little bit of time. And by doing that, we had to come up with some hood hinges that would actually work and clear and give us the space we needed. And so, we had to buy some new hood hinges. Of course, we designed them and we have them on our website. So, we make made it easier for you, but all the labor that goes into that to make that work um costs quite a bit of time and money. Now, we painted the firewall and cleaned all that stuff up. Um I haven't decided if I want to paint this or not. I'm considering it, but I kind of like the originality of the truck and and the patina and and it's kind of cool because I don't I don't feel so badly about driving it. Um but pretty cool. And again, everything's brand new. All new brake lines, all new fuel lines, all new fuel tank, air conditioning system setup. Everything's super nice, done super well, clean, serviceable on this particular truck, right? We want it to be serviceable. So, you got access to some fuses here. Of course, you got your computer here. Easy to get it in and out. And you've got your control pack, um, fuse box air, fan relays, and stuff like that. So, really simple. We built this custom cold air intake. We've got your air filter here. And then of course you got your washer reservoir right there as well. All parts that we make, you can purchase. So a lot of this stuff you can just go on the website and buy. And like we said in the very beginning, if you want to do it in your own garage, this is stuff that you can go purchase. You can do the work yourself. Super easy. All right. Very cool. Look. And look at these hood hinges. Man, I just love those things. They just want to come right up so easily. And then done. All right. So with that, because it's low, we got our turning radius that gets a little bit tough and we're worried about, you know, our turning radius and hitting here. So it just clears. So the wheels had to go in a little bit. But then we've got these Clawson ID performance wheels. They're super cool. We spent a lot of money on them. I'm not going to lie. Wheel tire combinations close to like $9,000 or so. Um, and you can get by is less. Let's be honest with you, you could probably go buy wheels and tires for like 1,500 bucks, two grand or less, right? And uh you don't have to spend that much money, but we did. And so we just keep adding all that kind of stuff up. All right, so that's been lowered. Um now really um we got widened 12-in wheels back here. So these are much wider. That's what's causing the expense. But of course, we want the traction. We want big meats in the back. So we can, you know, heat those things up and then they're sticky and, uh, makes for, um, doing burnouts, a little more fun. Also, um, makes it just better traction in general. So that there's too much power. And if you got a little tiny pizza cutter in the back, well, it's you're going to have a hard time just, you know, keeping the wheels from spinning. So, well, we took this w this bed, this metal bed, and I should probably wash it. It's kind of dirty, but um, and then we had to raise the the floors. We had to take it all apart, raise the metal floor. Oh, not to mention, check this out. This actually is an Explorer. And so this was a super cool, super clean bed. And so we actually took this really nice long bed and we shortened it down. I've had people ask said, "Man, I don't remember a a short bed explorer." Well, it didn't really exist, I don't think. Um, and so you have this long bed, but everything, if you look at it, it it's this is a lot of this is just all original stuff. We were really careful how we cut it down, how we trimmed it. We had a friend of ours, um, Kyle, um, I think I could remember his name. Anyways, Metallocks, yeah, that's his Instagram. And he he helped us cut it down and we we we did it and he said it was really hard, but he did a phenomenal job cutting it down. So, had all this raised up in here. We raised the bed, got everything raised up so we had plenty of clearance, kept these wheel tubs in here, and then we did a a color matched bed liner just so it wasn't black and it just kind of blended in and it looked kind of, you know, traditional looking. So, without destroying, you know, the overall look, we just kept it real cool. Well, underneath all this though, when you take a a 1972 bed, right, that's going to be 53 years old bed. It's pretty easy for me to do the math because that's the year I was born. and you have all the grime and junk and everything underneath it. So, the guys had to spend a ton of time in the body shop like sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, get all that stuff off. Clean it, undercoat, bed lined, everything underneath. It's all brand new. Any tiny little rust underneath it was fixed and bedlined and everything's topnotch, super clean. That can take you about $10,000 in labor and materials pretty easily. We didn't have a tailgate, so we had to find a matching tailgate. And of course, I wanted this uh little panel on here cuz I thought it looked pretty cool. All original. This is all original. Uh we did throw a new bumper on it. Um but again, all this is all this is all original. Everything's kind of cool. New new all new LED lighting on it. Um just so that it's super safe. And then at the end of the day, u we have completely wired head to toe, brand spanking new wiring harness in here. Everything's wired. And then there's a lot of like internal things. So you have uh a brand new stereo system, brand new interior. Uh everything is uh Brett, you know, full leather Apex interior and that easily can set you back, you know, to have all this installed about $25,000. A little bit more on this because we did bucket seats in the console, so probably closer to 30 grand. Um new Dakota digital gauges, you got restood AC and all new weather stripping and new glass and everything's new minus the sheet metal. Well, now that we're inside, we can talk a little bit about more of the features of the interior. So, this is a brand new bezel, but we use the Dakota digital RTX gauges. And so, it's kind of like a nod to like the classic. So, you got like these like they're actually digital, but they look like analog um numbers. And so, it looks like they're rotating, but it's actually just a digital screen. So, kind of that retro look, but Dakota's version of it. So, it looks kind of cool. Oh, funny story. I had somebody in the truck the other day and they said, "What's this?" And they pointed to this and she's like maybe I don't know, let's say 27 if I had to guess. And I was like, "Wow, that's really weird. She doesn't even know what that is. I wonder if the guy even holding the camera right now even knows what that is." Anyways, but it's an ashtray. Obviously, if you're watching the video, you guys know. And so, you've got this this ashtray in here. And people used to smoke in cars all the time, right? uh Marlo man, right? You know, and now it's nothing. You put change in it or some people just get rid of it all together. I like it because it's still part of the original dash. I don't like to get rid of everything. Um some people have built like a big old thing here and put your radio in and I like a little bit more of the classicness. So, but anyway, so really cool with the with the gauges and we've got a retro sound stereo. So, it just kind of feels a little more factory. And then this is a piece that you can buy billet piece. And then there's a little black piece you can put on here. So it kind of ties in. And then of course you got your air conditioning and um blend doors and heat and all that stuff. So we've got a USBC uh charge right here. Um this is the microphone for the hands-free calling. This is the parking brake. We got washer. We got a factory key. Porsche style. It's on the left hand side. I think that's why they did they did it on the lefth hand side so you thought you were driving a Porsche. Pretty sure. And then you've got the headlights here. And then we've got this cool little valance that we designed here that we got some vents in here. Uh we got a wood grain to match you into the doors and um kind of gives it that kind of old school look um without being too big. And uh of course we got this interior color. Um I like the keyway of this. So, this is like a 1966 um Ford Ranger color keyway where they would have had if if you look at some of the original 1966 and first year they came out with the Ranger, I believe it was a 1966, they had bucket seats and a little console and it was kind of like the same color. The reason why I know that is cuz I owned a 66 Ranger at one time. Uh we've got a spark steering wheel. We got our um Flaming River steering column. Um, we actually are designing a new dash pad because look how far this comes out. And I I can just barely get my hand in here to clear. And so we're actually designing one that goes back about an inch or so and just gives us a little more clearance where we might be able to use get the steering column just a little bit further away and maybe try to fight for a little bit more ergonomically friendly column possibly. So just playing around with some different ideas. Um, of course, you know, new sun visors, new headliner, of course, the original, um, Wimpleton white trim um, to match. Um, and then we've got, let's see, on that side is where he would hang his, um, work uniform on that right there. Um, and so then you've got a LED dome light here. It makes it nice and bright. Something we sell on the website. Of course, we've got our soda can holder for our Diet Dr. pepper. And then I've got my phone right here in this little pocket and it can sit there while I'm driving and it's all Bluetooth and so I can have my music and cruising. We've got foccal stereo system. So cruising comfort. So which is what we're going to do next. Okay. So everything's brand new. So if you take a fully restored vehicle and you add paint to it, you're going to add a lot more money. And so that that'll that'll get you. Paint's super expensive. If you think 5,000 10,000 paint jobs exist, they don't. you're definitely not getting a good paint job. But I can look at 25 $35,000 paint jobs and I can look at 50 and I can look at $150,000 paint jobs and there's a drastic difference, right? And so all all that just comes into play. Um for us, we are not trying to cut corners always. We are trying to do value things that could help save money, but at the same time, people come to us because they do want the reliability. They do want the consistency. They want to know that the recipe that we have works. They believe in that. We drive these things. These are meant to be driven. We put a,000 miles on them before we give them back. But anyway, so this is a cool truck. We're really happy with it. We we love this color tone. You don't see this this color palette very often. It's unique. I love this this yellow and white color. I love the bumper guards right here. Um, half my shop says take them off and then the other half says leave it. I'm on the leave it side of things. Anyways, but let's go for a drive and uh let's go cruise this thing and let's have a good time and uh we'll even try to sneak a burnout in the end. Keep watching the video and you'll get treated with a little uh extra treat in the end. All right, I want to put my seatelt on just in case something goes a little sideways and um let's go driving. Let's hit it. Wait. Sit. I'm addicted to die. Dr. Pepper. Somebody needs to help me. So, I need an intervention. So, on these Dakota digital gauges are pretty cool. Like the green tells you your RPM right here. And then that red is kind of your red line. I never pay attention to that. That feels like We'll stop when we're ready to stop. We'll bounce it off the rev limiter if we need to. Ooh, this Kia has like racing stripes on it. That's bizarre. I'm pretty sure this dude in the Kia wants to race. What do you think? Should we let him get ahead and then smoke him? I mean, if you put racing stripes on your car, right, you should look at that. Racing stripes. If you ever have a Kia, don't put racing straps on your car. Hopefully, he doesn't see this video. Feel bad about him. So, cool car. Cool car. I love it. What's cool about these is like like you didn't have this kind of like like it, you know, when it when you go to like change lanes, it's it's pretty it's pretty instant. Just handles so well. And it's a 10-speed automatic and so you don't have any of this extra work of, you know, clutching, shifting, any of that kind of stuff. But it pulls pretty hard. Those automatics are so linear and if your tuner is really good at tuning the transmission and everything like it'll it'll be smooth, like super smooth and just have plenty of power. And it's just a regular stock Coyote, so you're probably getting close to 500 horsepower out of that thing. Pretty quick through second and third. it. I could feel it spinning the wheels a little bit going through those gears. We're actually running 370 gears on this. You could go up to like 389 pretty easily. Kind of want to be careful about with your gear ratio cuz you don't want the transmission. Some people kind of complain about like the 10-speed always hunting. A lot of that just has to do with the gear ratio, how it's all set up. And so if you get like gear strategy and you want it to really just have a ton of pull off the line, it could kind of be seeking a little bit. So 373s, 370s somewhere around there, they really kind of work the best kind of the best of both worlds. It also allows you to get pretty good fuel economy. So we're probably like 18 19 miles to the gallon, maybe 21 if I took it easy. Cost effective, right? You tell your wife, you just spent $250,000, but it gets 21 miles a gallon. and she's going to be like, "Oh, that makes sense." Right? Some people are like, "Ah, you've know you must know everything about everything." I'm like, "I know a lot. There are some things that I I don't know." And so, I would need help from my guys in the shop to give me a hand. And and frankly, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know that I I want to sit down in my garage and build a truck. I think the reason why I got into what I was doing is so that I could have people help me build trucks because I enjoy it and I love it. And so it's kind of one of those things where what's the what's the right thing to do, right? So, all right. Well, this was cool. Um, and it is cool actually. Feel the AC. That's actually feeling pretty good. Feels really good. I think, uh, it's all cooled down. Everything feels good. Feels really nice in here. I think the most important thing yet to still do is the burnout. So, we'll take the cameraman and put him outside and we'll see what we can do real quick before the neighbors call the cops. Smoking. God, stinks. Let's get out of here.