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Chopped Festiva Converted To Off-Road Use
Brandon Perry turned his old Ford Festiva into an off-road trail truck. The short truck is just right for ATV trails, but is still legal to drive down the highway.
    “I have a cabin on 22 acres of woods with no road, just an ATV trail to get to it,” says Perry. “When I complained to a friend about not having a four-wheeler, he gave me back an old Festiva I had sold him 10 years earlier.”
    Perry’s friend had turned the Festiva into an ice-fishing rig by cutting holes in the floorboards. Now Perry and Ray Frahm, another friend, turned the front-wheel drive car into an off-road truck.
    “We removed the rear seat, cut off the back hatch and replaced it with a framework of angle iron and tube steel,” says Perry.
    Perry and Frahm then used the frame to enclose the cab with a removable window. They also fabricated a mini-pickup box, complete with fenders and tailgate. They pulled the gas tank and mounted it against the front panel of the box, which left room to rearrange the exhaust system to create more clearance. Skid plates of 18-gauge steel were mounted front to rear to protect against trail debris.
    “We installed a collapsible back rack on the tail gate to make a mobile shelf for working on chainsaws and other tools,” says Perry. “We also attached removable boat seat mounts to the box for use off-trail.”
    They added a roof rack with four front and two rear driving lights and an air horn and painted it camouflage style. “We had a major storm this past year with lots of downed trees, so we loaded it up with chainsaws and went to work,” says Perry. “It’s awesome on our trails.”
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Brandon Perry, 8437 240th Ave. N.E., Stacy, Minn. 55079 (ph 651 788-0254; hricustoms1979@yahoo.com).


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2012 - Volume #36, Issue #4