Power Distribution System
Green Lights, Good Times
In the world of cookie-cutter builds and going fast in the desert, you have two options: buy a UTV or build a prerunner. One is turnkey ready to go, easy to live with, minimal maintenance, cheap to keep running, and guaranteed to put a smile on your face every time you climb in. Side-by-sides are good at what they do, and they do it really well. But that feeling can be numb.
If you want something more visceral, something that’s yours from the ground up well, if you’re Kevin Callaway, a mechanical engineer by trade, you build a 1993 Dodge D250 Cummins diesel prerunner.
And that’s exactly what he did.
When Kevin first floated the concept to a friend, the response was instant: “That will never work.” That was all he needed to hear. The truck was getting beams, a full tube chassis, and a Cummins under the hood. 16 months later, it was done.
Starting From Zero Then Going Further
It started as an old work truck he found sitting in Yucca Valley, California. Kevin brought it home, stripped it to a bare cab, 3D scanned everything, and built the entire chassis from the ground up a custom tube chassis front to back, sitting on beams designed by LSK Fabrication.
Under the hood is a 2007 Cummins 5.9 making 600 hp and 1,000 lb-ft of torque. The suspension makes 20 inches of wheel travel up front and 32 inches in the rear. The whole thing was designed, fabricated, wired, and painted by Kevin in his garage. The only things he didn’t do himself were the windshield install, the paint protection film, and the transmission rebuild.
Feeling Lucky
Kevin runs two sPOD BantamX units integrated into the truck, controlling all the lighting, fans, and accessories on the D250. Up front, seven LP4 LED light pods with green backlight on the bumper push 61,999 lumens into Lighting Zones 1 through 4, and every one of them is running a green backlight to match the British Racing Green paint. S2 with green lenses serve as turn signals, and green rock lights serve as interior lights.
Out back, an RTL is mounted as a chase light, and a pair of RTL-Ms handle brake lights and turn signals. Because the entire truck is custom wired, Kevin integrated the sPOD input functions directly with the turn signals when the indicator hits on the steering column, the S2 Pros drop to 10% and flash in sync with the RTL-Ms. On a separate switch, he can run the S2s at full power as marker lights when he’s off-road.
Kevin painted the truck British Racing Green because it was the right color for what he was building, and it matches the brown PRP racing seats and wood grain oh so perfectly.
At the end of the day, Kevin could have bought a UTV. He could have been out in the desert six months earlier, with a warranty card in the glove box and a dealer number on speed dial. But that’s not the point.
Kevin didn’t build this truck to go fast. He built it because building it was the whole thing, and the truck just happens to rip.
