Earlier today I mentioned how much I like the concept of sleeper cars, which is usually understood to mean a car that looks tame or pedestrian on the outside but actually is hiding a vastly more potent engine, making a sort of very fast wolf in slow sheep’s clothing. But who said a sleeper has to be just about the mechanicals of a car? Why not have other sorts of sleepers, where the hidden magic is something else? What if the hidden element was a really stellar interior in something where luxury is usually considered to be a seat where the stains are no longer damp?
That’s pretty much exactly what we’re looking at here with this seemingly pedestrian work truck with a “service body,” as seen in a number of Instagram and Facebook posts: a sleeper truck, with a very utilitarian exterior and an absolutely stunning all-leather interior.
Seriously, just look at this thing:
Let’s look at some of these interior images a little closer, why not?
Damn, that’s a lot of leather. Did anything not get slathered in quilted leather here? I bet if a fly landed on that dashboard and you looked away for a moment you’d turn back to find a stunning fly with a tiny leather-wrapped abdomen that looked like a nutmeg-colored micro-pinecone until it flew off to the beat of tiny suede wings.
Look at that quilted headliner! And these door cards:
Man, you can almost smell and taste that leathery goodness, right?
Now, of course, the whole reason I give a brace of BMs about this kind of luxury is the context it’s in, which is, let’s not forget, this:
A work truck. A humble Chevy 2500 truck with the service body utility bed, cloudy headlights, and the general look of the truck that comes to fix things when a storm takes out a transformer or two in your neighborhood. This is the epitome of work truck, and as such the very idea of a lavish, sumptuous interior seems absurd.
Which, again, is what makes this great.
I think our own goth designer snob Adrian Clark actually put it best when he tweetled about this thing:
“Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity” – Coco Chanel. https://t.co/xTh08mgICO
— Adrian Clarke (@adrianfclarke) October 27, 2025
That’s right, Coco Chanel, you sorta crypto-Nazi! Luxury is the opposite of vulgarity, and this humble (I wouldn’t call an honest work truck vulgar, but I suppose Coco might) work truck has definitely been elevated to a new, unexpected level here.
And, of course, the contrast is key. Simple and utilitarian outside, lavish inside, like if M&M made a variant with a little morsel of Kobe beef inside. It reminds one a bit of this old Saturday Night Live faux-commercial:
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I really wanted to know the story behind this truck: who is transforming a utility truck into this sort of secret luxo-lair, and why? I reached out to JRA Kustomz, who actually did the work on this truck months ago, to try and find out. I spoke with Robert, who was part of the team that elevated this machine.
I also have to note that this company also did the interior of this stunning ’95 Mexibeetle:
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But let’s get back to this truck.
“It was kind of a bait description,” Robert admitted. I asked Robert to clarify, and he told me that’s because he didn’t think the truck was going to stay in its current, utilitarian state. “They tell me what to do, and I get it done,” he told me, noting that he really didn’t have much of an idea what the client’s plans were for the truck after the significant interior upgrade.
He did admit that the post was really taking off, and had “positive outcomes,” and that’s great, but I still want to know more, dammit. So I reached out to the people who commissioned the work in the first place, Daddy & Son Towing and Performance.
Daddy & Son builds some impressive custom cars, and I was hoping the plan for this would be a custom take on the humble utility truck. Sadly, that’s not the case. I spoke with someone at the company (I want to guess Son?) and found that the truck is destined to become a custom truck, but a more conventional-type of one, and already has a normal bed on it. They’re not interested in keeping it a full utility truck.
And while I’m sure the end result will be fantastic, I can’t help but think there’s a missed opportunity here. The whole reason this truck has been blowing up online is because, clearly, we as a culture are starved for one of these service body-backed genuine utility trucks to be re-cast as a luxury vehicle that can go toe-to-toe with Rolls-Royce Cullinans or those Bentley SUVs or any of those other overpriced, overworked status-haulers.
Just think of the swanky-opportunities offered by a service-backed ultra-luxury vehicle:
That service body’s many compartments could hold wet bars and chafing dishes and hors d’oeuvres and a whole long caviar trough on top! And that’s just one side! The other side could be full of cocaine and ayahuasca or pelts of exotic fauna or whatever the hell it is that excites rich people these days!
The parties involved with elevating this workhorse have stumbled on to something here, and even if they can’t see what they could have unleashed just yet, I’m confident they will.
Someone will be making an ultra-luxurious service body utility truck soon. It’s now inevitable, and I can’t wait.
Well, Henry Ford had a custom-made Lincoln camp truck, for his jaunts in the vast American landscape with Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone.
Love your idea of the luxe utility truck – you could use the other side to store blankets and table linens, with tables and chairs and umbrellas in the now-covered bed.
But why not go all out with one of those medium-duty crew cab utility trucks with a snorkel bucket. All the above plus room for more servants and stuff, plus unbelievable sky views!
Ugh, this reminds me of a work party I was at once where they were bringing around appetizers. I picked up a bright red ball, expecting it to be something sweet, and it turned out to be duck pate or something disgusting like that.
I’d get this over a “Platinum Capstone Denali” truck every day
There used to be a small, beige, slightly beat up, International Harvester Metro van in my collage apartments parking lot. I was walking by one afternoon, and noticed that there were really nice Pirelli tires on its steel wheels. I glanced inside and discovered the interior was gorgeous!! The whole interior was trimmed in what appeared to be a mix of black leather and alcantara. There were four Recaro seats, and just enough wood and chrome to set it off in a good way. Sadly, I never saw the owner or had a chance to talk about the build.
I prefer manual windows in a work truck, but they sure don’t scream luxury.
I dunno – I find that interior to be very much on the vulgar side of the line. Waaay overdone. But I am very much a minimalist. And I HATE that leather color – yuck. And it doesn’t go with the exterior color at all. A dark wine red would have looked soo much better.
Best have a shower and a clothes closet built into the back of the thing so you can clean your gross ass and change clothes before you slide in there after a hard day’s work.
I have to agree with Kevin: the whole diamond-quilted leather thing strikes me as vulgar and more than a little played-out. It’s de rigueur on high-priced rides, and now common on much more pedestrian fare. I like the whole idea of a plush interior on a work truck or beater, but I think tinted windows to hide that opulence from the rabble would be a must. 😉
These rigs are pretty anvil stout. Aside from the weak front ends, guage problems, oil consumption, oil sensor at the BACK of the engine…
Let’s just say they have their own issues. But they have NO fancy electronics, and that is a good thing.
I just had to fix a running light wiring problem on a 800 last weekend. The signal distribution module that splits lights off for each side and the trailer plug is another common failure point. Easy fix though, as long as you have the schematic.
Color matched service beds are a nice touch. There used to be a first generation Ranger in my neighborhood with a color matched service box that made a cute baby service truck. That would be fun to clean up as a parts runner.
TIL what a chafing dish is. Thank Jason.
I don’t get it, if you want to build a custom truck with a regular bed, then why not start with a truck that has a regular bed on it? Sure you can possibly sell the existing bed but you also have to buy the standard style bed.
My guess is that they were on the hunt for a cheap one of these trucks. They didnt care so much what is was because they knew they were going to likely swap everything out. This popped up extra cheap in very well used condition (read service body work truck) and grabbed it. The service body is likely more valuable than a standard bed, so why not make a little extra dough on the swap?
Back in the 90s, me and my buddies were customizing Honda Civics, because, thats what you did. We would joke that we’d like to go to the dealer and spec a Civic DX with no engine, wheels/tires, brakes, suspension, audio system, etc, and see how cheap that would be.
I guess this could have been the cheap option but around here it would have definitely sold for much more than a pickup.
I used to work at an industrial facility where the hotshot service we used to transport stuff ran a couple of different trucks that remind me of the one in the story. One was a F450 with a Platinum interior and the other was a Ram 3500 with the Laramie interior in it. In both cases, the hotshot guys bought new base-level work trucks, hit up Copart for scrap trucks, swapped interiors and a few other parts like headlights, and then parted out the rest to recoup the expenditure on the scrap trucks. They were very proud to have broken even on the part-out, making the interiors in their trucks effectively free.
I have two nearly identical Superduty’s. One with a service body and one without. The extra weight of the service body / tools and Tommy lift makes it ride like a Cadillac compared to the other one.