Before monster trucks were a thing, Big Foot was blowing people’s minds with its gargantuan custom boat engine and 66-inch tires. The truck doesn’t race anymore, but it’s too cool to be left to rot. Take a look at how it’s being revived for action.
A lot of folks recognize Big Foot today–the simple design, blue paint, chrome bed bar and flotation tires are famous. But before it was on posters, the original Big Foot was just a regular 1974 Ford F-250.
Bob Chandler, who still owns the truck, bought it as his own rig from a Ford dealer in ’74. He even had a camper shell on it for camping trips at one point. But the off-road upgrades started right away.
“It ended up being a vicious cycle. Because I put back tires on it, and they weren’t big enough for me, so I put bigger tires on it. Then I started breaking axles, so you put bigger axles on it. And then you run out of power so you’ve got to put a bigger engine. So that’s why I went to a 460 in it.... It went that way for probably three or four years.”
That engine is the focus of this PowerNation video, as the Engine Power crew dismantles and rebuilds the Ford 460 supercharged marine engine under Big Foot’s hood.
Apparently the powerplant cost $25,000 in 1985, which is almost $60,000 in today’s money, which actually sounds pretty cheap for a specialized purpose-built race engine. And if you want to see even more monster truck wrenching, PowerNation also has a clip on mounting up this truck’s transmission:
You might not “need” tutorials on how to work on Bigfoot, since, uh, I can’t imagine too many of you have one of these in your garage. But it’s really cool to see what was cutting edge technology 30 years ago, and watch Big Foot’s heart get some much-needed surgery.