Street Elite Tow Vehicle

This former American milk delivery truck has been turned into the ultimate Street Elite tow, that's right, tow vehicle.

DIVCO was an American manufacturer who made a multi-stop delivery truck with basically the same design from 1926 to 1986. When Queenslander Joe Bauer went on the hunt for something different that he could build differently, he found what he wanted as a basis for the project in a 1954 example that used to deliver milk.

To give this vehicle more power than he'll ever need, even when towing his Cobra replica to the track with the normally-hidden tow hitch, Joe built the engine himself. It's a 383ci Small Block Chev with ported RHS heads, an 8/71 supercharger and two Quick Fuel 750cfm carbies. It makes a more than plentiful 720 rear-wheel horsepower.

The body and chassis work were undertaken at Oz Rods, and almost everything on this DIVCO is now customised or scratch-made. Joe tells us that there were over 4,500 man hours spent creating this vehicle, much of it on creating a new body, and a framework underneath it, to go on a modified chassis. You can see pictures of Joe's DIVCO under construction.

There is also a lot of custom chassis work under the custom body. The rear end features a 4-link system, it has undergone a right-hand drive conversion, and it sits on air-bags which is why Joe was able to lower it so much for our pictures. The final part of the exterior was using 64 litres of paint, 110 litres of thinners and 12 coats of clear. And the unique airbrushing design that you can see was performed by Kipart Signs.

The insides of this DIVCO are as customised as the exterior. The new interior features heated massaging front seats with a captain's chair replacing the single front seat, and a new second row seat to fill only a small percentage of the massive cargo area.

The rear-row seat flips back to give the DIVCO enough area to camp in, which was one of Joe's reasons for wanting to build a van. The space is so vast that it took 14 cows to line the whole interior with leather.

A 1960 Chev Impala dash was modified to fit and then gauges from Dakota Digital were installed to give accurate readouts.

The project commenced in 2010 and was completed in 2013, in time to be unveiled at MotorEx in Sydney. At the same show it took the silver medal for Paint in the Street Elite Awards, and it has gone on to take more trophies home from other shows since.

To read the full 7-page feature on Joe's $545,000 fully-customised creation grab your copy of Extreme Magazine issue 120, available now.