It's been said that numbers don't lie. We'd contend that while numbers are definite and concrete, they also have a tendency to hide the rest of the story. We don't know what the final bill came to when the last weld bead was completed and the last fastener was torqued into place on this elite prerunner. We don't know because we didn't ask. Why? We were afraid of the answer. It seems there's another saying that goes, "If you have to ask, you probably can't afford it." We knew that whatever the answer, the number would've been too rich for our blood.
Instead of presenting the McMillin SuperCrew as a parade of unobtanium, we'd like to showcase the medley of tricks and innovative solutions that were used to create this truck. While premium componentry indeed carries a price tag, creativity and resourcefulness can be had by anyone willing to look at a problem and come up with a unique solution. Craig Stewart, assisted by chief fabricator Scott Kell and the rest of the crew at Stewart's Raceworks, was asked to create a prerunner for McMillin Racing that could stand up to the rigors of Baja while providing a comfortable enclosure for four fullsize occupants. While the McMillins wouldn't necessarily expect the 'runner to withstand the Class 1 Unlimited Buggy racing speeds that the fast family is famous for, the truck would still be driven hard through inhospitable terrain for hundreds of miles at a time. Breakdowns were not an option. Getting stuck was also expressly stricken from the menu, since prerunning is often done in remote areas sans chase trucks. Given this set of expectations, Craig and crew pulled the engine deep into the cab for better weight distribution, and created a long-travel four-wheel-drive frontend. The superlative SuperCrew's build was rounded out with a long-travel four-link rearend, an 80-gallon fuel cell, a Vintage Air A/C system, and enough radiators to chill engine and occupants on the hottest of Baja days. Crawling in, around, and under the superlative 'Crew, our truck-building light bulbs were aglow with ideas that will become a part of our own project trucks as soon as we can come up with the time, talent, and raw materials to bring these new ideas to life. While the vast majority of us won't be able to write a check fat enough to put a truck like this in our own driveways, we can all apply the innovations seen here to some degree on our own off-road creations. While numbers don't lie, there are still times when they shouldn't even get a chance to speak.