BY MIKE ALEXANDER
MANY PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY HAVE THIS BIG, GLAMOROUS PICTURE OF WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BUILD A CUSTOM TRUCK FOR THE SEMA SHOW. As we’ve mentioned before, it’s not exactly a walk in the park or what everyone thinks it is, and it’s a much larger undertaking than many are capable of living up to.
But that didn’t scare Jack Frith, owner of Fiction Fab, and Oscar Quinterro away. This insane full-custom K5 Blazer build began back in January 2018 when Oscar reached out to Jack with a digital rendering and asked if they could possibly meet the deadline of SEMA 2018. The two sat down and discussed a game plan to make it happen. On Feb. 1, the K5 was dropped off at Fiction Fab.
Now, to anyone who’s read the gnarly SEMA timelines and build deadlines, that might seem like plenty of time, especially since some work had already been started. But after digging a bit deeper, they soon figured out that it would all have to go, and they would have to start completely from scratch.
PHOTOS BY ANGEL DOOLY
Fiction Fabrication is a small shop and still in its early years. It’s just Jack, his dad and a couple close friends with day jobs who help out when they can—but they are no strangers to the SEMA crunch or crunch time in general. This nine-month build, however, definitely had a ton of firsts for the Fiction Fab team: their first classic truck build, first full-frame, first classic rust-repair and resto, their largest customer build. Needless to say, this project definitely pushed the entire team way out of their comfort zone.
Oscar had complete faith in Jack and his team. Beyond the digital concept, everything else was left to Fiction Fab to design and engineer. Jack and the crew worked through July on the full custom chassis. They made prototypes, tested and measured, and changed little details up until it was just right and flowed perfectly with the lines and design of everything else. Toward the end of July, they switched gears and began to tackle all of the sheetmetal work. The firewall, core support shroud, rear floor, front roll pan, Cali Combo, dash, toe boards, trans/driveline tunnel all had to be completely redone in a little less than six weeks to stay on track with the SEMA deadline.
”OSCAR HAD COMPLETE FAITH IN JACK AND HIS TEAM. BEYOND THE DIGITAL CONCEPT, EVERYTHING ELSE WAS LEFT TO FICTION FAB TO DESIGN AND ENGINEER.
The body was mounted to a cart and sent three and a half hours away to the painter while Fiction Fab meticulously finished off every inch of the chassis. Powdercoating, polishing, painting, hand selecting just the right hardware for each component of the chassis and drivetrain—these details truly set a build of this caliber apart. When the body came back, M&M Autobody Fiction had most of the interior waiting to go in. With the chassis and drivetrain pre-prepped and ready to set the body down, there was no time to waste. The countdown was on. The body arrived back to Fiction HQ only 13 days before they had to be loaded up for Vegas with the K5.