A Major League Find

Hello dear OBS Builder’s Guide readers, Emma from Mobsteel/Detroit Steel Wheel here, and yes, we are talking about our Detroit Steel Wheel OBS Suburban. This truck has acted as my media cruiser, Adam’s daily, and a Hot Rod Power Tour centerpiece for the Pilot Transport booth these last few years. For all of you hunting for that perfect OBS, let me tell you the story about how two boys with a dream scooped up a nice little rig with a fun history and shaped it to be a standout showpiece for a worldwide brand.

Adam and Steve flew down to Kansas City after seeing “Chad’s” listing on Marketplace. Actually, that was after Adam had his first go at it on Bring a Trailer. It never met the reserve, so it was taken down, but then our resident Suburban fan, Cody, found that a broker had posted it up. We ended up tracking down one of Chad’s duallies and found that the guy who did the interior on it was one of our good friends, so we hit him up for the contact info. From there, Adam and Chad had pretty much sealed the deal within the hour. We actually have a video up on the Mobsteel YouTube of the pickup, which also features all the other vehicles Chad has in his storage unit. It’s a very impressive collection.

What stood out to the guys when they saw it posted was that it had 30,000 miles, it was all black, and it was running a Whipple Supercharger on the 350 V-8. Chad went through and decked it out with billet products and a rich leather Recaro interior, but buying something sight unseen? That’s always a roll of the dice. However, when Chad opened up that door, there was a double sigh of relief. The truck was as clean as promised and ready to make the 11-hour drive back to Detroit. Another thing that was cool was that the former owner of this was an MLB Hall of Famer dubbed “The Humble Hero” Larry Walker in Sports Illustrated. Mr. Walker enjoyed the luxuries of this thing, and Chad gave us the full deck of trading cards as a memento.

What they knew it needed from the drive was new disc brakes, maybe switch some of the billet out, add our colors, and change the wheels. For real, this thing was an epic cruiser from Kansas City back to Detroit. Lower lumbar support and A/C are suddenly becoming a part of our “old school” culture as the years tick on.

My goal for them was to have this ready to debut for Power Tour 2023. Like I said, there wasn’t much to do, but when you are running two worldwide brands, manufacturing, and building vehicles, time is pretty much our most valuable currency. It already had a C-notched factory frame from Belltech with a 5/7 drop, the trans was a stock automatic 4L60E, and the interior was fresh with billet components. What we needed to add was our flavor. We came up with our own design on our Detroit Steel Wheels and threw 20x8s with a 4.75-inch backspace up front and 20x9s with a 5-inch backspace at the rear. As you can see, we’ve been playing around with some fun 3D printing ideas, adding the Detroit Steel Wheel trademark yellow with the inserts in the wheels and badging. Our buddy Kevin from W4 in Brighton laid out the graphics.

So like I said, my plan was to have the guys debut it at Power Tour 2023. The functionality was all taken care of as far as I knew, but I was meeting Adam and Steve at the Atlanta stop kicking off the show, and I had already been in town for three weeks covering different vehicles (you can see Sarah Boim’s truck in the all-female issue of C10 Builder’s Guide), so I didn’t know where they were at in the process. Pilot Transport (love that crew) brought down the ‘Burb in the fleet of feature vehicles for the show, and after unloading it, I saw that the guys only needed to apply our badging and inserts for our Detroit Steel Wheels. Once they got in, they got everything looking right. Then, it was off to enjoy an epic week.

What I definitely love about a Suburban is the space. Between all my camera gear, luggage, tools, spare wheels just in case for our customer vehicles, and three Detroiters, this thing promises comfort, capability, and style all the way. Adam loves that he gets to take it everywhere while running personal and business-related errands. We’ve put about 20,000 miles on it in the last two years, and a favorite stop for him is picking up his kids from school in it. All his daughter’s friends dig it. Yeah, we are in the cool kids club.

So where are we at with it now? Well, we’ve had it as a feature vehicle for when we judge the Hot Wheels Legends Tour. It has also been on display for our local shows like Radwood and Cars at the Station (yep, a Chevy featured at Ford’s Michigan Central Station), and we take it to all of the Sketchbattle events we are involved in, focusing on getting the next generation of designers into the industry. As always, you can catch where we are heading with it on our social pages @mobsteel and @detroitsteelwheelco. Don’t forget to check out the videos we have of it on our YouTube too! Thanks for reading. See you next time!

Truck Specs

Owner: Adam Genei / Mobsteel

1995 Chevy Suburban
Detroit, MI

Exterior

2000 Cadillac Escalade grille and headlights
2000 GMC Sierra 1500 bumpers

Engine & Powertrain

Updated 350
Auto 4L60E
Whipple supercharger
3.5-inch custom exhaust

Chassis & Suspension

Belltech 5/7 drop
Custom C-notch

Wheels, Tires & Brakes

20×8 and 20×9 Detroit Steel Wheels
Brembo upgraded brakes

Body & Paint

Paintwork by W4 Graphics
Trim deleted and blacked out
Custom billet Detroit Steel badges

Interior & Stereo

Recaro upgraded seats
Kicker Audio stereo
Custom billet accessories throughout the cab