Doug calls it the AA/100. Around the shop it was “Back Burner” — because it was always on the back burner, and because the engine is in the back.
It started around 2008, when Rod & Custom magazine had its artists call their favorite builders with one question: what would you build if you had the time and the money? Jimmy Smith called Doug. They talked through Doug’s concept and ideas, Jimmy added a few of his own, and his rendering ran in the magazine — a Dodge A100 pickup, blown, with the engine behind the cab.
Once the article came out, Doug’s friends told him he had to build it.
Rod & Custom said “what they would build if they had the time and money.” Ironically, I had neither. So it took 11 years, but I stuck with it and finished.
Doug Jerger
Matt Tomb did the chassis fabrication and engineering, along with some of the sheet metal work and help with assembly — a dear friend, and a patient one, who stuck with the project the entire way. Ron Davis Radiator, MSD Ignition and PPG sponsored product on the build, and the whole crew at the shop pitched in along the way.
Of all the builders in that Rod & Custom article, Doug is pretty sure he’s the only one who followed through.
Finished, the truck spent a couple of months this summer on display at the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Where it started
