So what’s going on here? The really odd thing is that just a few hours before I saw this GM truck sporting a 1974-grade bumper, I saw a Ford F-250 sporting similar protrusions on the front and back ends, but couldn’t peel off a shot. What’s doubly odd is that pickups were of course exempt from the old 5 mile bumper standard.
I even tried Googling “extended front bumper for pickup” but didn’t find anything quite like this. Anybody got the lowdown?
At first look it appears to be home made or poorly chosen adapted aftermarket. Using flat stock and many planes (probably combo of weld and bends) to avoid compound curves and to give that particular aesthetic 🙂
It’s similar to aftermarket bumpers I’ve seen on other trucks. But this one is the ugliest version I’ve seen.
Pretty common here unfortunately. Guys (and it is almost always guys) with more money than sense get an aftermarket bumper make of all metal. In theory it could be justified with a winch or bull bar but it is style thing most of the time. Often paired with a lift kit or oversized exhaust.
I think they are unnecessarily ugly but that is just me.
A local vendor picked at random – http://badasscustombumpers.com/
“Guys (and it is almost always guys) ”
usually named Cody, about 20 years old, probably with a diesel underhood (assuming they could afford it) who consider themselves “real Americans” because they wave flags, roll coal, and watch MMA.
‘cos nothing says “I’m a real man!” more than watching a bunch of sweaty, muscular dudes in tight underwear grope each other on the floor.
I’m sensing…. Anger
I’m guessing you roll coal and watch muscular sweaty guys grope each other.
thanks, Cody!
I don’t know what that is. I drive a Hyundai
Yes, indeed ugly, homemade and does nothing for the aesthetics of the truck.
Reminds me of the front cowcatchers on mid-19th century steam lococmotives.
Perhaps this is a pedestrian-catchers?
Halwick, that’s a Ford Mustang.
It looks rather out of place on a plain white regular cab truck.
Is this the brodozerization of America?
To be fair, I never have liked the black plastic bumper they stick on the most basic versions of this truck. Not that this is much of an improvement.
Clearly he saw the same accident you did yesterday and decided to future-proof himself.
An experiment in 3-D printing! The future is here!
Yes! I definitely saw one of these exactly! The bumper was painted bright orange. Can’t remember if it was here in Portland or in the Bay Area. I think it was on some sort of fleet vehicle, maybe a railroad or a utility? It was definitely manufactured not home-made. I’m sure it’s for some functional purpose, it was on an otherwise utilitarian truck.
Google image search is not showing me any of these.
What the heck is it for???
Always wondered what you connection with Reddy Kilowatt is. My great uncle was a friend and later associate of Ash Collins, the creator of Reddy, We had a ton or RK swag around the house. I wish we had saved it because I am sure some would be valuable now.
Oh yes, all that Reddy swag would be great stuff now. How great to have a connection to the artist!
I just like him because I’m an electrical engineer, a lifetime radio ham and have always loved electricity, especially electric cars. Thanks!
This company’s offerings are pretty similar. https://www.movebumpers.com/gallery/chevy/1500 But there are lots of people making these plate style bumpers.
Though it’s not real clear in Paul’s side-view photos, this bumper is very V-shaped as seen from above and as seen from the front. Hugely striking when seen in person. I’m sure this shape is for some purpose. But what?
Some of the ones on that page have a pretty deep V to them. I don’t think they are for a specific vocation, just a look.
Just Google “steel aftermarket pickup bumper.” And you’ll see examples like this.
I understand the theory behind the aftermarket bumpers. Modern bumpers are verry thin, you can’t push anything with them or drive through much brush and sit verry low to the ground.
The current trend of design for car is not bumper, just look at the new Camry, Accord and all Ford cars. Some of them remain with bumper which is plastic cover painted with car body color and beneath some impact absorb materials. For very upscale vehiclles like Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Toyota Century it just does not make sense
If you’ll press on that plastic cover you’ll feel how “soft” it is – for a reason. It’s not just about design but also for safety – see my comment below.
Still, as restyling goes I’ve seen worse.
Or the look, taken to it’s extreme?
God dammit I actually wiped the area occupied by your avatar.
Besides ugly this bumper is dangerous – to pedestrians. It could wreak havoc into thighs and/or knee-caps of anyone who fails to escape being hit by this behemoth (at low speeds, of course).
In Israel they banned bull-bars for the same reason, and these bumpers are also on their way, from what I heard. Only special service vehicles, carrying winches will be allowed to have them.
So they’ll have to ban lift kits, winches, chrome, and fog lamp as well. That is if you want light trucks to comply with with the standard vehicle pedestrian laws
Chrome it and fit to any 1974-5 FoMoCo car. It’s no worse than the factory jobs.
It’s an uggly one for sure, but the rise of the bull bar or solid bumpers has a legitimate and logical underpinning… I personally don’t like the look very much, but I’m putting one on my ram anyway…. When you pay 30000 for a standard cab truck or 50000 for a crew cab you want to protect your purchase, and the modern front ends are very weak, and very expensive to replace… So spend 500 bucks and slap an uggy ass bumper on it to protect your radiator and from end components
The picture is an F150 that hit us (in a Subaru) at 45mph. The driver (actually all people involved) walked away. The whole point of a crumple zone is for IT to crumple instead of the occupants. Adding a huge metal frame mounted rigid bumper just transfers the entire shock of an impact to the frame, then to the cab mounted to the frame, then to the seats mounted to the cab, then to the occupants of the vehicle sitting on those seats. If it in fact reduces the actuation of an airbag as suggested below due to how it’s mounted or where the existing sensors end up then that makes it even worse. In the end, maybe the radiator would still be ok but perhaps the frame would be bent instead. Replacing a frame costs more than replacing a radiator and soft front end parts.
That’s the reason for insurance. I’d much rather have a totaled truck and get paid out than have to drive a significantly repaired one. And as a bonus the occupants are more likely to survive intact as well.
The air bag system is finely tuned with the crumple zones and all OE equipment. Sticking an aftermarket bumper like this can confuse the system. Burried somewhere in the Ford Police Interceptor up-fitters guide is a warning that adding push bars may negatively affect the operation of the air bags. So yeah I’ll stick with the OE bumper on my pickup. If I walk away and the truck gets totaled I’m quite fine with that.
what the hell is going on with this page? it keeps jumping back up to a big empty zone of white space just between the end of the article and the comments. it’s incredibly enraging. rogue ad code?
Of all the abominations of the Malaise Era, those ludicrous bumpers were the worst.
That bumper would inflict maximum damage if that truck were to rear end your car. I’d get out of its way as soon as it gets behind me. Also, I take it that adding such a modified bumper would render the driver/passenger airbags in the truck inoperable.
It likely won’t render them inoperable but it may make them less or in-effective by changing the timing of when they trigger.
My son has something similar on his pickup. Can’t recall the name of the maker but there’s a large number of companies producing these type of hardened front bumpers.
While heading down to our place in California from his home in Montana for Thanksgiving a few years ago, he hit a large buck at about 75 mph. The truck was totaled, and he was so rattled by the experience, his second deer he hit up there in two years time, that he got one of these massive bumpers to try to mitigate the damage if/when he hits another.
Maybe the driver of this pickup suffered a similar episode. Hitting deer at high speed is surprisingly common.
“While heading down to our place in California from his home in Montana for Thanksgiving a few years ago, he hit a large buck at about 75 mph. The truck was totaled, and he was so rattled by the experience, his second deer he hit up there in two years time, that he got one of these massive bumpers to try to mitigate the damage if/when he hits another.”
yeah, good luck with that. Cervids like deer, elk, and moose are so dangerous in collisions because they’re hundreds of pounds of meat on stilts. doesn’t matter what kind of bumper you have, all it will do is take out the legs and you’ll have a 400 lb butt cheek coming at you through your windshield.
Not really in this case. The truck is four wheel drive and sits tall. Tall enough that the large buck he hit went directly into the radiator. The windshield survived. Had he had the current bumper most likely he could have driven the vehicle instead of being stranded in the middle of no where in the middle of the night.
Now the deer he hit in his dodge neon was another matter…
These aftermarket bumpers have their legitimate uses. Off-road driving through brush, increased approach and departure angles, winch mounts, or just to accommodate severe-duty use. I know of one man who has a “Ranch Hand” brand brush guard (the best IMO) that he uses to push open spring-loaded gates on his farm. I don’t care for them, as I’ve always preferred the OEM look, but to each his own. These bumpers can be modified to accomodate any factory sensors.
Previous commenter yohal71 mentions these and bull guards are banned in Israel due to injuries to pedestrians, I would think it’s more to make vehicles less capable of breaching security bollards and such.
I had a friend who had a beast of a ‘65 Chevy K20 with a six-inch steel tube filled with concrete on the front of his truck. He broad-sided a Corolla that ran a stop sign at about 30 mph. It pushed the car’s passenger door all the way to the driver’s seat; not a bend in his bumper nor a scratch on the truck, unless you count his slightly bent frame, and cracked oil pan.
It’s a purely rhetorical question, but: WTF is WRONG with people?