Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/743334
2 Overdrive's | prideandpolish.com RAGS DOWN! L ike fashion, car trends and home decor, show truck trends haven't stopped evolving since truck customizing began its rise in the late 1980s and early '90s. Back then, buildup options were limited, says Suzanne Stempinski, a current Pride & Polish show organizer and a longtime former owner-operator and Pride & Polish competitor. Custom and chrome were hard to nd, and the trucks on the circuit in many ways paled in comparison to the mega-custom rigs competing in today's Pride & Polish shows. Stempinski and a few of the early Pride & Polish competitors even had a parts- sharing program, loaning chrome pieces to one another for competitions while the other would send his or her parts away to be chromed. "It was like a rotating supply," she says. "It was nuts." Brian Martin, head of 4 States Trucks in Joplin, Mo., has seen nearly all of the show truck trends unfold in the last quarter century. "In the mid '80s, people were just bolting on what was available," Martin says. "If you had a cab and sleeper panels, a drop visor, an air cleaner and a few lights, you had a custom rig." Overdrive's Pride & Polish – which not only provided the opportunity for custom truck builders to show o their work, but also served as a forum for custom ideas to breed – played a big role in driving the evolution of custom truck builds from simple bolt-ons to today's modern show- stoppers. e premier show truck beauty competition celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. e rst Pride & Polish show took place in 1990 in Louisville, Ky. Murals were popular then and through-out the early '90s, Martin says. "Like 'Smokey and the Bandit,' " he says. "A lot of desert and Western themes, patriotic airbrushing, things Pride & Polish helped spur the major custom trends of show trucks' last quarter-century By James Jaillet