If you want it, Kenny Powers' custom 2005 Dodge Ram from the third season of Eastbound and Down is up for grabs for the low, low price of $15,000. Strangely, it didn't sell on eBay last week, so it could still be yours.
After the eBay auction ended last week, there were no bids on this remarkable iconic piece of white trash automotive history, even after NBC's Wilmington, N.C. affiliate put out the good word on their website.
In real life, the truck is owned by Justin Masters, a Wilmington resident who worked on the set for the show's first three seasons. Eastbound star Danny McBride noticed him driving it, and recognized in its Guy Fieri-esque flames and Lambo-style doors the kind of ostentatious charm that jived with Kenny Powers' milieu.
McBride, the guy who plays Kenny Powers in the show, grew up and kicked off his working years in Fredericksburg, Va., so he probably knows a ridiculous truck when he sees one. (I lived there for six years, and learned enough to get jacked up 1980 GMC 4x4 and a job changing oil at Pep Boys to help pay for the huge amount of fuel it drank.) But badass Southern trucks aren't all McBride knows. He also knows public schools, which are an important facet to his character in "Eastbound and Down."
He undoubtedly gained a lot of inspiration for his role as a P.E. teacher from real life, too. When she was finishing up her last year of school a decade ago at then Mary Washington College, one of my former classmates there worked with McBride at Orbits Downtown Eatery. When he wasn't working at Orbits, he had a job subbing at the local schools, and often regaled her with stories about "the little pissants."
Both of us were the newbies at the place and together we shared the shittiest shift. Tuesday night. When I say share, I mean share. It was just the two of us hosting, waiting tables, serving drinks, and doing dishes. We had one cook in the back, but that's it. So on the slowest of nights we typically just shot the shit. The schools he worked in weren't always the greatest so he had some stories. One I remember is from a time when he was subbing in a high school and he was trying to act all strict and scold the class when one girl raises her hand and says, "Mr. McBride, I like your hair." Apparently she said it with a sort of drawl that you would only imagine in the far South and well, he just couldn't do anymore scolding after that.
Now she's a fourth grade teacher and he's Kenny Fucking Powers, and Kenny Powers doesn't need a teaching credential to position himself authoritatively before the student body. In his TV role, he's learned how to assert his authority with the little pissants, in a way most substitute teachers could only dream of doing. Here's a quote from the show's first episode:
"Hello. School, can you hear me? Good morning, students, teachers, faculty members, lunch ladies, janitors. This is Kenny Powers, professional baseball player, and I got something I wanna say. A lot of you motherfuckers think you know who Kenny Powers is. Well, I'm here today to tell y'all you don't know shit. There comes a time in every man's life when he's got to take a look at himself in a mirror and decide just exactly who he is. Well, I've come to that crossroads and I've decided. Kenny Powers is a man. Kenny Powers is an athlete. Kenny Powers is a lover. But the most he is, I mean, the thing that Kenny Powers is the most, is a goddamn champion. And the one thing a champion does not do is fucking quit. A true champion faces his enemies and he conquers them. And that is why I'm here today to tell you all that Kenny Powers is officially accepting the position of PE Coach here at Jefferson Davis Middle School. That is, until the majors call me back up. So, let's get the teaching on!"
Whether Masters will relist the truck or keep it for himself is anyone's guess. Kelley Blue Book lists the truck's private party value at between $12,441 and $14,366, so the reasonableness of the $15,000 asking price depends upon your opinion of a 4x4 adorned in wave-like flames and dubs. The Ram comes with a tailgate damaged by a cannon ball in episode 2, and another one signed "Danny McBride AKA Kenny Fucking Powers #55" so maybe it's a steal.
In a perfect world, a middle school P.E. teacher/baseball coach would buy the truck, drive out onto the field during practice, and start calling kids pussies in front of their parents.