“Project TOC”The crew out of Triple R Diesel’s Texas Chrome Shop hit the show circuit this week with its latest highly custom build, culminating more than a year-long venture that Texas Chrome’s Roland Mendez says “sets a new bar” for the company’s show rigs.
“Project TOC,” a 2000 Kenworth W900, rolled out of the company’s shop in San Antonio and into the Great American Trucking Show this week, where it’s competing in the Builders Class category against some of the country’s other top custom builds.
Roland Mendez standing with Project TOC on the show floor at GATS.Mendez, VP of sales for Triple R and the creative brains behind Project TOC, says the shop set out to build a stand-apart custom rig.
“Every truck is different, but we wanted to try to raise the bar,” Mendez says. “We wanted it to have stuff no one has seen before,” he said, referencing the truck’s one-off painted steel bumpers, the truck’s array of “sunken” features and the ornamental filigree that runs throughout the rig’s paint scheme and metal parts.
Mendez is officially showing the truck at GATS, but the rig’s owned by horse hauler Omar Ruiz out of San Antonio, who turned the Kenworth over to Texas Chrome in mid-2015 for the custom rebuild.
Ruiz’ kids are the inspiration behind the name: T, O and C are the first letters of their names.
See photos of the rig below. The winners from the GATS Pride & Polish show will be announced Saturday morning. Texas Chrome has taken home several Pride & Polish Best of Shows in year’s past, including the Best of Show, Limited-Mileage Combo for its 2009 build “Project One.”
Editor’s note: Project TOC won Best of Show in the Builders Bobtail category at GATS.
The in-house fabricated rolled steel run throughout the Kenworth’s exterior.
Mendez and his crew incorporated filigree detailing in the rig’s paint scheme and in fabricated metal parts.
The truck’s front bumper has a unique rolled look, and Texas Chrome fabricated all of Project TOC’s wheels with the filigree ornamentation.
Mendez made use of four different blues in the truck’s paint scheme. He noted the continuity of the lines running from the KW’s grill all the way to the rear bumper.
The highly fabricated rear bumper was built in-house out of steel.
Mendez swapped out a bunk for a leather bench in the truck’s sleeper.
Sunken features — such as the lights pictured here — are one of Project TOC’s key themes. Lights around the rig are sunk into the truck’s body, as are the grill, windows and more.
