SEPTEMBER 2017
38
Sometimes a truck just isn’t big enough for the task at hand.
Normally, that would be a matter for a car salesman, but some-
times you just have to take matters into your own hands. With his
2016 GMC Sierra Denali, Scott Beckstead needed a bigger truck
to accommodate his family and his scout troop. Did I say bigger?
What I meant to say was longer.
It all started with the need to fit more bodies into his vehicle.
Scott has a family of seven, and most trucks can fit six at the most.
Seemingly having no other option than to get a second vehicle, he
decided to do something a little (okay, a LOT) unorthodox: stretch
the truck out and make it a six-door behemoth. Scott lives in
Centerville, Utah, and knew about a shop nearby that specialized
in body and bed extensions. Brian Wood is the owner of Custom
Solutionz, Inc. and StretchMyTruck.com. The general manager of
the shop, Riley Gold, spoke to us and gave us the lowdown on how
this feat of engineering is pulled off.GOING LONG
The very first thing they do is purchase another duplicate cab
that matches the original truck. They cut the front of the donor
truck off, cut the back of the original truck off, and do a whole
heap of custom body work and fabrication to line the cabs upstraight and graft them together. The next step is to make a cus-
tom-built center door that has the front contour of a rear door
and the rear contour of a front door. Riley says, “We basically cut
each door in half and then swap the front and back so that the
body lines all match up.” They get the body work in place to make
sure it all fits, then pour fiberglass molds of the new custom truck
door. That way they can replicate it if there’s ever an insurance
issue, if the truck gets damaged, or if they get that exact same
truck for a build in the future. Next, they pull parts out of it and
build a thin metal structure out of aluminum to serve as a mount
for wiring and such. They put together door harnesses and tie
them in with the interior harness. Finally, they have custom
laminated glass built for Fords, Chevys and Dodges, depending
on what year they are.
“The difference between what we do and what other guys do
is they just add metal onto the existing rear door and then just
bolt on a rear door and leave it,” Riley says. “We didn’t want to do
that because the body lines and the window lines don’t line up
and don’t look factory. When we do it, we build a custom center
door from scratch and make it from the ground up to fit exactly
as it should instead of modifying something to make it fit. We just
make something that fits to begin with.”BY TREVOR MASONTHIS SIX-DOOR DENALI
LIVES THE LONG LIFE(Photo By Scott Beckstead Photography)