A one-of-a-kind, custom Chevy Silverado recently went to auction, but failed to meet reserve despite a six-digit high bid. It’s this 2019 Chevy Silverado 5500HD custom-built by Ekstensive in Houston, Texas. It was featured in a season three episode of the show Texas Metal, but apparently didn’t garner enough fame for a successful sale.
The custom bed on this truck combines form and function. It could be used like a regular truck bed, and it has toolboxes integrated into the sides. It also has a massive sound system integrated into it for a worksite, a tailgate party, or anywhere else that demands many watts of sound.
This custom truck exudes a lot of visual personality. It has a custom wrap, a suspension lift, a custom front bumper with a 12,000-pound winch, and 28-inch American Force wheels. The truck also has a little political messaging; it says “#FJB” on the front bumper and “Let’s Go Brandon” by the running boards.
The video showing the interior reveals the inside of the cab isn’t nearly as customized as the outside; it looks like a pretty normal medium-duty Silverado in there. What it does have is two-tone leather seating and a custom audio system.
Even before it was customized, this was never an average Chevy Silverado. It started its life as a medium-duty, dual-rear-wheel Silverado 5500HD chassis cab truck with a crew cab and 4WD. Power comes from a Duramax turbodiesel 6.6L V8 L5D engine rated at 350 horsepower and 700 pound-feet of torque. It’s essentially a detuned version of the Duramax 6.6L V8 L5P found in the 2500HD/3500HD trucks of the period, optimized for durability.
Although this was surely an expensive custom build to make, and the mileage is low at only 3,328 miles, nobody wanted to pay more than $120,000 for this truck. That’s how high the bidding went in the Mecum Houston 2025 auction, and it wasn’t high enough to meet the reserve. If a Chevy truck like this can’t sell in Houston, Texas, does it have a chance of selling anywhere?
Comments
Now that’s what you call a bunch of absurd ridiculousness. Sent it to the crusher. Americans don’t need something like this running around.
This is America. What’s wrong with you? You must be a radical lunatic liberal DEI loving Democrat suffering from TDS and woke mind virus. This will crush your liberal tears.
It’s a bit over done. Really all it needed was a custom bed and wheels with a mild lift and a killer paint job. Then the reserve could have been lower and it likely would have sold. They invested too much in the build. IMHO.
This is a MAGA dream come true. My neighbors would maybe give up their guns for this! Maybe not. They love their guns. This thing says AMERICA! Get in there with Kristi Noem or Bobert in that bench seat sidling up with a flag waiving good old boy.
How dumb do you have to be to not know the only difference between an L5D and L5P is the last letter which designates Propane or Diesel.Its not “de-tuned”Propane has more potential energy by volume…..but that being said.No real man is buying a work truck on rubber bands
Agree, those rubber band tires on the ugly black wheel wouldn’t last long doing real work. It’s a show pony.
Vehicles like this always fail to sell the first time around. They place the reserve too high in hopes someone will over pay for things like this. They’ll run it a few more times and accept the lower bid, or the potential buyers will just ignore it because they don’t want to waste their time on an “if” war with the seller. I work at an auction chain with 5 dozen sites in the US.
I love Chevy trucks and I’m an industrial pipe fitter /welder . I wouldn’t touch this truck . It’s a stock truck with a lift and rims I didn’t pick with some stickers . It’s not worth $120,000 that was offered on it . You still got $20,000 worth of work to do to make it reliable . It’s why I don’t own a diesel currently .
I think the question is how we’ll was it actually built
I’ve seen some tv show/sema bulls that looked great on the show floor behind a rope but if you inspected then or put 50 miles on them you’d be lucky if they were still drivable. and probably wouldn’t even pay stick price.
Truck looks nice. That being said, it’s a six year old truck with a detuned diesel engine. The new engines are putting out more horsepower and torque. It didn’t touch on the interior, most of these commercial trucks are stripped down, and nobody paying that kind of money wants a stripped down truck.
In this region, any truck over Class 3 (3500) is considered commercial, and you need to be a fleet to register and license it.
No fleet is paying $120k+ for a custom build that can’t decide what it’s built to do. And no fleet is touching this thing for a long list of reasons (liability, practicality, DOT regs, etc. etc.).