The DuraCoat® Machine - Part 1: The Rise of the T-Rex

Some may say: “Oh, it’s just a Hummer.” But, it has a greater story to tell.

One day, Steve Lauer, owner and inventor of DuraCoat®, decided it was time for a second Hummer. The H1 he bought back in 2000 needed a companion. Since they had stopped building H1 Hummers by this time we naturally went to the best place to find such things: the internet. Since finding a new H1 would be difficult we spent our time searching through the listings and stumbled upon something. It’s a Hummer! It’s a Humvee! NO! It’s a T-Rex! Wait, what? We had found something different, something unique. Something with a story just waiting to be told.

The T-Rex was a Hummer look-alike made from the late 90s to the early 2000s by a small vehicle company called Jurassic Truck Corporation in Arlington, TX. The T-Rex was designed to look like a H1 but weighed 2000 lbs less and was a fraction of the cost. They were sold mostly in kit form but a few were sold as nearly complete, basically just missing the engine. There are no official numbers but supposedly less than 200 exist. The one we found on Ebay was a kit that was built in the early 2000s into a full truck with monster truck proportions. No other T-Rex could be found for sale and very little information could be found to tell us more about the history of this find. So naturally, Steve bought it. 

That brings us to today. The T-Rex is in for a major upgrade to make it even more monstrous. We called upon Fast Freddies Rod Shop in nearby Eau Claire, WI to tackle this mission. The plan was to install a blower and new drive train to really make this baby go. Stay tuned as we follow the rise of the T-Rex.

Update: Read the next chapter here:  Part 2: The Roar of the T-Rex - Dyno Test