As I write this, I’m on a plane to Las Vegas for the annual SEMA Show—the automotive aftermarket’s largest convention.
This blog is usually dedicated to cars I’ve personally purchased and owned, but I’m making an exception for a few vehicles that may not have carried my name on the title yet received a great deal of my time, effort, and passion.
One of those vehicles was my first SEMA build: a 1946 Dodge truck we called Six Pack. Built in 2015, it remains one of my favorite memories from my time in the performance aftermarket—especially every first week of November when I return to Las Vegas for SEMA.
The Idea
At the time, I was in my second year as Director of Marketing at Premier Performance Products, a small distributor specializing in high-performance products for light-duty diesel trucks. The role appealed to me for two simple reasons: Premier was based in my hometown, and I had dreamed of working in the performance aftermarket since I was a kid.
I joined Premier just a few months before attending my first SEMA Show in 2014. For exhibitors, SEMA is an opportunity to meet customers, conduct business, and see the latest developments in the industry. That year, we arrived with a pair of lifted diesel trucks equipped with the usual accessories, bolt-ons, and flashy wraps.
The trucks represented our core customer well, but our booth traffic was lighter than we had hoped. By the time we left Las Vegas, the wheels were already turning on how to make a bigger impact the following year.
Premier had a unique value proposition. On paper, we were a distributor: We stocked and shipped parts within a specific niche of the industry. We were also off the beaten path, in southeast Idaho, just 80 miles from Yellowstone National Park.
But our differentiator was our people.
Our technical-support team included some of the most dedicated diesel-performance enthusiasts in the industry. They were not simply reading owner’s manuals or relaying information from manufacturers. They drove highly modified trucks, built many of them themselves, and lived the lifestyle our customers were passionate about.
Our tagline was #WeSpeakDiesel, and we decided that SEMA 2015 would be our opportunity to prove it was more than marketing jargon.
Six Pack was the result.
Finding the Foundation
We wanted to build something completely different: a wild rat rod that combined a 1990s-era diesel truck with a 1940s-era body.
As Director of Marketing, I became the project’s orchestrator. My first task was finding the vehicles we needed to begin. We launched a company-wide contest, offering a bounty to the person who could find a suitable 1940s-era truck. At the same time, I secured a tired Dodge Ram 2500 with a 12-valve Cummins engine to serve as the foundation.
A member of our accounting team won the contest after locating a 1946 Dodge two-ton farm truck, complete with plenty of patina, in a farmer’s field in Grace, Idaho.
Premier Performance Products was the first distributor to focus exclusively on diesel-performance products. Its founder, Rus Michaelson, had seen firsthand how much a Bully Dog propane-injection system improved the performance of his 7.3L Ford Power Stroke. He began buying the systems and selling them to dealerships out of the back of his truck.
That grew into selling parts from his garage, then building a warehouse and securing early distribution agreements with brands that would become synonymous with diesel performance: Edge, Superchips, TS Performance, BD Diesel, ATS Diesel, and many others.
As a distributor building a SEMA vehicle, our goal was to showcase as many of the brands that had contributed to our success as possible. I spent countless hours on the phone with those companies, pitching the build and securing their support.
I also enlisted my friend Andy Yee, a talented automotive artist and custom-car builder, to create renderings of our vision. One early concept placed the 12-valve Cummins behind the old Dodge cab.
We quickly realized we did not have enough space to build a SEMA rat rod on-site without disrupting warehouse operations. Fortunately, a sports-apparel distributor a block away had sold its business, leaving its building vacant. We rented garage space there and got to work.
Building Six Pack
The beginning moved quickly. We tore the Ram down to its bare frame and sent the engine to Industrial Injection to be used as a core for a fully built 12-valve Cummins.
Then we hit our first major snag—something common when building a fully custom SEMA vehicle. The Ram frame was not going to work for the truck we envisioned.
So, we built our own.
Premier’s technical-sales team came together to cut, measure, grind, and weld for weeks while I sourced the parts needed to complete the project. The build included:
- A Yukon Gear & Axle rear axle built for a Duramax
- A fully built 12-valve Cummins from Industrial Injection, paired with an Attitude Adjuster high-pressure fuel pump for on-the-fly adjustment
- Massive compound turbos from ATS Diesel
- A performance transmission from BD Diesel
- Custom fittings and piping from Vibrant Performance
- A one-off exhaust system fabricated by Diamond Eye Exhaust
- A cooling system from CSF Radiator, with the radiator mounted behind the cab and Flex-a-lite fans to improve airflow
- Vision X lights, AutoMeter gauges, and Corbeau racing seats
- SSBC brakes, American Force wheels, and the widest street-legal tires available from Mickey Thompson
- Air Lift bags with an onboard digital ride-height adjustment system
- Six Nitrous Express bottles mounted in the bed—the inspiration for the truck’s name
In true SEMA-build fashion, we were still applying finishing touches just days before loading Six Pack for the trip to Las Vegas.
I will never forget the team’s reaction when the truck breathed fire for the first time. Rus took it to the dry farms outside town to break it in, and its first fill-up at Ray’s Chevron attracted plenty of attention.
In the final days, we installed the glass and made a quick trip to Salt Lake City, where Industrial Injection dyno-tuned the truck. Six Pack produced just under 1,000 horsepower—and 1,300 on the bottle.
SEMA Success
With the truck finished and our marketing plan in place, it was time to find out whether all the work had been worth it.
Our SEMA booth was simple by design. Six Pack was the centerpiece, supported by a backdrop that communicated Premier’s real advantage: an enthusiast-based technical-sales team with exceptional skill and knowledge.
The response was immediate. Booth traffic increased dramatically from the previous year, and customer leads rose by more than 400%.
My most vivid memory from that year is driving Six Pack out of the Las Vegas Convention Center during the SEMA Ignited parade, then briefly through Las Vegas. Driving something that unique is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Six Pack became one of the standout builds of the 2015 show. It appeared on top-build lists, was featured in numerous SEMA recaps, and helped spark a rat-rod trend that grew over the years that followed.
Bringing It Back
Six Pack was successful enough that we brought it back to SEMA in 2016—this time with even more flair.
Rather than build another rat rod from scratch, we partnered with Weaver Customs, which had built a customer rat-rod hauler from an old Diamond T. The hauler was more than 20 feet long and powered by a high-performance 12-valve Cummins. We brought Six Pack into the 2016 SEMA Show on the back of a second rat rod.
Leading up to the event, our marketing team created a video that highlighted not only Premier, but also our shared passion for the performance aftermarket. Part of the shoot took place on the Bonneville Salt Flats, where I had the opportunity to drive Six Pack at speed—one of my favorite memories from the entire experience.
In the years that followed, Premier experienced some of its greatest successes. We took Six Pack to events around the country and helped create the Ultimate Callout Challenge, a diesel-performance competition that puts teams through drag racing, tractor-pull, and dyno events. We helped establish its initial structure, created the logo and marketing materials, and served as the event’s first title sponsor.
Looking Back
I look back on my time at Premier and in the performance aftermarket with a great deal of appreciation. The people, creativity, and enthusiasm behind projects like Six Pack made that period special. I had to snap a picture of the Premier Performance (now called APG Wholesale) booth a few years ago when I recognized the photo of Six Pack I’d snapped with my cell phone the day it ran under it’s own power for the first time.
Although I have not been involved in a SEMA build for several years, I remain passionate about the industry. I will continue looking for opportunities to make a positive impact—and to keep chasing the vehicles on my own automotive bucket list.
Leave a Reply