Battle of the Bling: The 2017 Daytona Truck Meet
Daytona Beach, Florida, is known for its white-sand beaches and the International Speedway worldwide, but that’s not the city-by-the-sea’s only major draw. From Jeep Beach to Bike Week, Daytona Beach plays host to some of the biggest gearhead gatherings in the nation. One event that’s starting to become a summertime truck enthusiast magnet is the Daytona Truck Meet. Now in its fourth year, the two-day event had trucks pouring in from all over the Southeast.
Always looking for an excuse to mix a coastal vacation with truck fun, we headed south to check out this year’s show. While the video above offers a glimpse into the action, we’ve put together even more snaps of the event in our article below.
For the 2017 Daytona Truck Meet, the show would be based out of the Ocean Center Convention hall. This had a portion of the trucks on display inside. Many of these were high-horsepower diesels, such as this Cummins-powered Ram on Nitto 420S tires sitting in the American Force Wheels booth.
One of our favorite trucks from the show was this solid-axle Dodge Dakota. Not only does it have a custom multilink suspension with air bags, but it’s powered by a 4BT Cummins diesel engine. We’ll have a full feature breakdown on this killer rig soon.
Big wheels and even bigger rubber was the trend throughout the weekend. A set of 38x13.50 Nitto Trail Grapplers were wrapped around these custom painted and massive deep-dish 24-inch wheels.
A wide array of awards were given out on Sunday at the show. Felicia Orcutt nabbed Best Female Owned Truck with her Southern Off Road-sponsored Ram 2500, which was equipped with a BDS Suspension and 38-inch-tall Trail Grapplers.
Any Level Lift was on hand with two of its innovative Ford Super Duty trucks. The company’s unique suspension design allows the truck to cycle between 13 inches of lift height. This out-of-the-box thinking helped them nab the Best Lifted trophy.
The show was just as hopping (albeit a lot hotter) outside too. While late-model trucks were the mainstay, there still were plenty of older modified pickups on hand.
KMC Wheels had one of the cleanest solid-axle Chevys at the show. This late-model Duramax was built by Plan B Fab and featured some extremely detailed suspension work. While there weren't too many “trail-style” builds on hand, it didn’t take away from the amount of detail and labor spent building these custom trucks.
We ran into people from all over the Southeast at the show. Alex McDaniel drove his 2012 Ford F-150 all the way from Missouri to check out the event and enjoy a little time hanging on the sand.
Speaking of the sand, the shoreline was a turned into a makeshift truck parade all weekend long.
Given that Daytona Beach is one of the few places in the U.S. you can drive on the sand, it makes for a picturesque spot to cruise. We definitely didn’t expect to see a new Ford Raptor on 22-inch wheels, but that was not even close to the most surprising thing we spotted.
The “what the heck” award goes to this guy! We spotted this crazy Mercedes on the move a few times over the weekend. We’re guesstimating those wheels are around 36 inches.
One truck build type we were surprised we didn’t see more of was lowered trucks. Lifted trucks by enlarge outnumbered the low-profile pickups. However, that didn’t stop many of them from hitting the beach.
With so many trucks at the show and visiting the beach, you’d often find some pretty incredible pickups sitting in various parking lots. We were loving this pair of classic Dodges.
