If people and other animals have eyes as the mirror of the soul, then, of course, the headlights play an important role in the car. If it’s retro, it’s round. If the 80s are rectangular. If the 90s are the best example in this article. The Ford Mustang of the fifth generation, the Dodge Challenger of the third, the Charger of the sixth, and indeed almost the entire wave of neo-retro of the two thousandth looked so good and, in fact, retro, not least because of the round headlights. In the Chrysler Airplane, no matter how smooth and sleek it may be, because of the perfectly round headlights, you can guess the car of the first half of the last century. And quite the opposite with the hero of this article: before reading the next paragraph, try to guess what year of manufacture this green pickup truck is.
In 2002, one of the designers of Hot Wheels was inspired by this car and created a model called Super Smooth. And, oddly enough, the headlights of the mini model were round! The question is, how could you leave aside the most central feature of this hot rod? After all, even looking at photos of the engine, you involuntarily pay attention to the headlights that are so unusual for such a car.
So, in front of us is a machine named Weed Eater, which I would translate – with a little creative license – as a Herbivore. According to the Mecum auction, the car was so named after the exceptionally low landing, which is achieved primarily by air suspension. Although it seems to me personally that the very remarkable green color – House Of Kolor still prevents the really good colors – also has a direct relationship to the name of the car. Anyway, the Herbivore is a GMC pickup truck… a drum roll… built in 1939! That’s how much the headlights change the car.
And yes, in case you didn't recognize them, these very front lights were taken directly from a 1997 car called the Plymouth Prowler and integrated into the 39 GMC without the slightest changes, but clearly with a sense of style, creating a unique blend of pre-war classics and much more modern trends.
Since the Herbivore was born almost 90 years ago, the body of this machine was completely made of steel at the time of its birth. And this feature was preserved: all body modifications were made of steel. New elongated fenders, running boards, bodywork, and even a radiator grille – which, although reminiscent of Plymouth, was nevertheless created from scratch and by hand at the Tucci’s Hot Rods workshop in New York. In addition to the visible details, the suspension and frame were also made from scratch – and especially the custom frame deserves attention, since it was not least due to it that it was possible to achieve such a low body position. Knowledgeable people may have already made the assumption that there was a deepening of the body fit, but – surprisingly – this procedure was not carried out. The floor of the car remained in its factory location, which made it possible not to squeeze the very spacious and comfortable interior. The whole trick is in the new frame, which is located 15 centimeters lower than the original, and it is designed in such a way that all the elements of the transmission and exhaust system are above the bottom of the frame, which means that the really important parts are guaranteed not to touch the road.
By the way, Dave Tucci opened a garage named after himself in 1996, and the Herbivore was built in 1999 - and it's very nice to know that both the green hot rod and the garage that created it still exist.
And in addition to the new parts, parts from other cars were used in the best traditions of the custom scene. In particular, you can see a whole scattering of borrowed elements from the back. The exhaust cutout was once the grille of a 1954 Pontiac. The taillights are a 1936 Chrysler. And the most interesting element is the hoods on the rear bumper, from a 1957 Chevrolet. These elements are popularly called “dagmars” – in honor of the American actress Virginia Root, nicknamed Dagmar, who loved to emphasize her breasts. And since Virginia was very popular on American television in the 50s, it was by analogy with her shapes that the name “dagmar” was fixed behind the conical protrusions on the bumpers of cars.
Inside the cabin, the most noticeable part of the interior is the toolbar from the already mentioned Plymouth Prowler. Although, unlike the headlights, the torpedo looks very vintage. But the steering wheel, on which the Colorado Custom logo is visible, very clearly refers us back thirty years, because Colorado Custom is almost a synonym for the word “nineties” for the custom scene. Colorado Custom also made discs for the green GMC, although everything here is, I would say, surprisingly strict. The rotary movement of the discs is given by means of a V-shaped figure of eight with a volume of 6.7 liters with intake manifolds from Edelbrock for 368 horsepower. The gears are picked up by the Turbo-Hydramatic 700R4 automatic, and the driving axle is a classic Ford nine-inch, reinforced with a four-lever system. In general, the power plant is not particularly combat-ready, rather for a comfortable cruise, but in extreme cases, a certain volume and power are present under the hood.
A hot rod is not exactly a hot rod if the discs on the rear and front axles are the same size. So the Herbivore has the 20s in the back and the 17s in the front.
Of course, a project of this level attracted a lot of attention: in the two thousandth, this green pickup truck appeared on the covers and in articles of many magazines, was a model for advertising various spare parts, Hot Wheels has already been mentioned… and then the car suddenly disappeared, suddenly reappearing only at SEMA 2021 for the first time since 1999. Where has the car been all these years? There is a great mystery. It is, in fact, impossible to find any information between 2001 and 2021. Whether it was stored in the garage, whether it drove on the roads, whether it was restored, beaten, painted is unknown. All I could find was that the Goodyear tires had been replaced by a Falken kit for twenty years, so I daresay the car was still on the roads… although that’s not a fact. In any case, the unexpected return of the Herbivore in 2021 without any visible changes was very pleasant.: The 90s are now also somewhere around the 50s and evoke almost the same feeling of warm nostalgia. We can only hope that this car has roads ahead for another twenty years, and that this will not be our last meeting with him.
