Ricky Sanders grew up traveling to the desert and his love for off road started out with dirt bikes when he was 17.  His first truck was a 1990 Toyota single cab with a 4 cylinder engine which he was able to buy with the money he earned working at Pizza Hut.  The first modifications to that truck were a spindle lift and prerunner bumper. But that didn’t last long.  Throughout the years it evolved into a fully built prerunner. Ricky experienced what most people do while honing in on their fabrication skills and building trucks.  Seeking out more power and suspension travel was next on his list.  Ricky decided he had his fun with that truck, put it up for sale and started planning on a bigger and better build.

Ricky wasn’t sure what platform to go with and out of the blue his mom said “what about a T100”.  He thought that was a great idea and at 24 years old, he bought a beat up stock 1996 Toyota T100.  During the following week, Ricky and a buddy tore the cab off and started building a full tube chassis truck.

Most of us garage builders start out with the idea of keeping it low budget because of the lack of funds. He had already planned on making the front suspension with center mount arms and a 4 link rear suspension, but would build it the best he could with what he had.  About 4 years later it was ready to drive out of the garage with a 383 stroker, stock turbo 400 and mild built rear end.

Ricky had fun with his T100 for a while but after breaking many parts he decided it was time to throw out the “low budget” idea and do a full rebuild of the truck. He started out by building new suspension, swapped in a LS with a new TH400, went with bigger shocks, rear end, wheels and tires.  And that’s how it sits today, the Toyota “T1000”.

Ricky is proud of everything he has been able to accomplish in his garage and can’t wait to learn more. It’s no secret that I’m a big Toyota fan and built my own T100 prerunner in a friends garage.  It’s amazing to see what Ricky has created in his garage taking it to another level with the full tube chassis and V8. Garage builders are the core of off-road and we need to feature more of them here on Race-dezert.com.

1996 Toyota “T1000”

Owner/Fabricator: Ricky Sanders
Chassis: 2” DOM full tube chassis
Weight: 4920 lbs
Wheelbase: 125”
Track width: 89”
Engine: LQ9 (LS2) 6.0 stock
Cooling: Ron Davis
Exhaust: Custom headers by Ricky, all stainless 3” Magnaflow
Transmission: TH400 Reid case
Brakes: Wilwood 6 piston on 14” rotors
Fuel cell: 40gal custom built by Ricky
Tires: 37×12.5×17” BFG KR2
Wheels: KMC Machete 17×8”
Fiberglass: Hannemann Fiberglass
Front suspension: Center mount 18” travel. Fox 2.5 coilovers and 3.5 bypass
Rear suspension: 4 link 25” travel. Fox 2.5 coilovers and 4.4 bypass
Rear housing: Camburg 4”, 2.5 hubs
Third member: Strange nodular. 5:29 gears
Steering: Fortin 2.5 rack
Lights: Vision X 6.7” HID
Communication: PCI intercom, Kenwood radio, Lowrance Trophy 5m GPS
Seats: PRP and 5.3 PRP harness
Sway bar: Blitzkrieg