Goodguys 2024 Dakota Digital Truck of the Year Late!
Congratulations to Ty Zito for winning the Goodguys 2024 Dakota Digital Truck of the Year Late title with your 1993 Chevy C1500 Indy Pace Truck built by Twin States Rod Shop! We’ll see you and your vehicle in Scottsdale, Arizona November 22-24, 2024 at the 27th Speedway Motors Southwest Nationals as part of our 2024 Top 12 display!
If you’re curious about the current boom in custom sport trucks from the 1980s and ’90s, consider guys like Ty Zito, the owner of this bitchin’ custom ’93 Chevy Indy Pace Truck. He’s a great example of the type of enthusiast driving this trend. Ty grew up during the ’80s and ’90s, the heyday of the original sport truck movement, and like so many enthusiasts from earlier generations, he found himself drawn back to the trucks of his youth as he got a little older.
“As a young kid, I was always interested in trucks, mainly mini trucks,” Ty says. “I built a couple trucks along the way, one of which was featured in Street Trucks magazine in April 2000. My love for mini trucks was still there, but the desire was not, so I started getting into powerboats and owned several of them.”
Ty found his way back to trucks more than a decade later, and even scored another Street Trucks feature with a custom truck in 2017. He was in the process of rebuilding that truck in 2020 when he came across this Indy Pace Truck on Facebook Marketplace. It was originally bought by a dirt track in Daytona, Florida and was used as a pace vehicle for the track. Ty initially commissioned a milder custom rebuild at Stafford’s Garage but found himself wanting even more when it was done. So, he turned to Justin and Eli Griffin at Twin States Rod Shop a couple years ago for a more aggressive, high-impact makeover.
The latest incarnation of this Pace Truck began with completely smoothing the original frame and fitting it with Stone Fab front and rear coil-over suspensions and a Moser Engineering rearend. Little Shop MFG provided the 16-inch disc brakes, which are positioned behind Schott Mod 5 22×8.5- and 24×12-inch wheels wrapped in Continental tread. The frame has been filled, smoothed, painted and buffed to the same quality as the exterior and outfitted with billet body mounts and plenty of chrome, including a polished aluminum driveshaft.
The truck’s original small-block V8 was set aside for a 496c.i. big block that reinforces the “INDYKLR” persona. It features a Comp cam, Edelbrock Tru Flow intake, Bad Habit headers, a CVF Racing serpentine drive, and more, plus a lot of bright paint detailing to coordinate with the exterior graphics. It’s backed by a 700R4 transmission.
There are more metal mods on the body than you might expect, including custom front and rear bumpers, a metal valence by Sisco’s Fab, a smoothed cowl and under-hood surface, Slosh Tubz inner fenders, widened rear wheel tubs, and custom inner bed panels. The most striking element, of course, is the paint. Eli Griffin from Twin States and Brandon McCoy from Gooch Customs teamed up to put a ’90s-style graphic twist on the OE paint scheme, topping the BASF black and white base with brilliant multi-hued graphics and a stylized Indy Pace Truck profile on the door. Look closely and you’ll note how the graphics continue through the inner fenders, door jambs, front bed panel, rear of the cab, and even inside the fuel door. It’s beyond impressive.
The inside is the cab is clean and crisp, with Slosh Tubz buckets seats and custom door panels stitched in gray Moore & Giles leather by MTI Automotive Designs, and square weave carpet on the floor. The original dash has been updated with Dakota Digital instruments, Spare Time billet vents, and a Sparc Industries wheel topping the Ididit tilt column. Tasteful LED lighting, billet handles and pedals, Vintage Air, and a leather headliner are just a few of the other well-considered interior elements.
It all comes together in a killer package that blends ’90s design sensibilities, modern build quality, and fanatical attention to detail. The Indy Killer is a perfect example of the retro-influenced sport truck movement and a great sign that the future of these custom haulers is very bright, indeed. Congratulations to Ty, the Twin States crew, and everyone else involved in this incredible build, the 2024 Dakota Digital Truck of the Year Late.
Photos by John Jackson
