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Roadster Shop chassis underpin some of the world’s greatest restomods. Whether you’re looking at the latest million-dollar Ringbrothers project or the company’s “new” Squarebody Chevy pickup with 650 horsepower, you’ll find its painstakingly engineered platforms holding it all together. It’s amazing how far Roadster Shop goes with these functional pieces of fabricated art, and, by the looks of it, the crew has done it again. This time, they’ve developed a purpose-built chassis for 1988-1998 GM pickups that start at $45,000!
These are entirely new—and complete—units meant to give you a massive head start on your throwback Chevrolet or GMC truck project. Big ol’ 5- by 2.5-inch laser frame rails with .188 wall thickness give the chassis shape, while you’ll find Currie Dana 44 front and Dana 60 rear differentials mounted with triangulated four-links. Roadster Shop, who knows far more about this than I do, says on its site that this is to “optimize anti-dive, anti-squat, and suspension articulation.”
Speaking of suspension, these insanely upgraded GMT400 frames come with Fox Racing 2.5 Factory Race Series coilovers. Roadster Shop tunes the valving in-house to strike a good on- and off-road balance. And rather than using spherical or Johnny-style suspension joints, they’ve equipped the chassis with “massive sealed x-axis flex joints” that should perform better from a noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) perspective and last longer. The dynamics are further refined with CAD-optimized front steering geometry.
Roadster Shop
You can fit all kinds of engines on the RS4 OBS chassis, whether it’s an original 350 TBI V8 (admittedly underwhelming for architecture like this) or a modern supercharged lump. Factory mounting locations for ’88-’98 GMT400 are standard, and you can spec it with different mount kits for other small- or big-block Chevys, LS motors, or LT1/LT4s. Downstream, you can even option it with an Atlas transfer case to speed up the build process for your 4×4.
Honestly, there are too many options to list here in a short blog. Roadster Shop offers a genuinely solid selection of disc brake packages with its own stainless steel brake lines; you can spec it with a Fox ATS steering stabilizer kit; and you can pay them an extra $5,000 for satin black powder coating throughout.
Roadster Shop
Is all of this worth $45,000, or even $60,000, depending on the options you spec? That’s tough for me to answer from my office chair. What I can say is that I grew up around pickups, and I’ve only gotten more acquainted with them after writing about ’em for 10 years. I’m fully confident this is unlike any GMT400 componentry I’ve personally worked with. Clean examples of these trucks absolutely still exist—the further west you go, the better they are—and this will make for some killer survivor builds.
Meet the New RS4 OBS | Chassis Assembly
Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com
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From running point on new car launch coverage to editing long-form features and reviews, Caleb does some of everything at The Drive. And he really, really loves trucks.
