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Unread 12-24-2008, 11:50 PM
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Publish date: Oct 29, 2007
By: Matt Emery

After 25 years of treating other people's race frames, Jeff Davis decided he wanted something more. So when it came time to envision his 2003 Ford Ranger in off-road trim, he saw it as a prerunner–a modified rig he could roll through the desert in, without having to give up the finer things in life such as air conditioning. However, Davis' longtime association with Sandy Cone, Baja winner and owner of Cone Industries, helped Davis' thinking evolve even more. A call went out to Mike Normile of Normile Concepts in Atascadero, Calif., and such was the birth of Davis' race truck. Working closely with Cone on the overall design, Normile retained the stock Ford frame rails but supplanted them with a hand-built, 4130-chromoly tubular chassis, resulting in a chassis and suspension system that would be more at home in The Museum of Modern Art than in the desert.

Fittingly, we here at Dirt Sports thought it only appropriate to display one of the trickest Class 7 race trucks we have ever seen as this month's Masterpiece in Metal. With a level of fabrication and design well beyond most Class 7 trucks and usually reserved for the upper echelon of exotic Class 1 Unlimiteds and top-tier Trophy-Trucks, it was an easy choice.



Not only is the design of the chassis impressive, the execution is beautiful as well. Items such as the J-Arm suspension, which also houses the Cone Industries anti-sway bar, features fully safety-wired hardware. Another topnotch element is the quality of welding on each piece; simply beautiful workmanship is found throughout the project.
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