Electric pickup trucks cause a lot of talk just by themselves. Early users think its performance is the best since sliced bread, but skeptics point out that it is cumbersome. SoFlo Customs and Apocalypse Manufacturing built the world’s first lifted Rivian R1T, worsening the debate. If they had only changed the chassis and frame, that would be one thing, but they did much more. Apocalypse also liked how the Rivian looked, even though they said it was too “like a Kia” in its stock form. But we’ll talk about that in a bit. Now, let’s talk about the delay. A few weeks ago, when I first saw a movie of the Rivian in its old form, the lift caught my eye. I’ve written a lot about this before, but adjusting the suspension of an electric truck is much more complicated than changing the rest of a gas or diesel pickup. This is primarily because of its independent back suspension, but after a certain height above stock, the front suspension also gets more challenging. When they threw the Rivian high into the air, the crew of the Apocalypse saw this for themselves. At first, they thought it would need more work on the frame than the chassis. Joe Ghattas, the owner of SoFlo Customs and Apocalypse Manufacturing, says that it quickly grew into much more than that. They had planned to lower the subframe and electric motors about the rest of the chassis, but they quickly realized that the only honest answer would be to make various suspension parts from scratch. Ghattas told the Invoice Pricing over the phone, “We had to make every part from scratch.” We thought that moving that suspension down would be easy. We had to make our own spindle and upper and lower control arms to get the rack back where the driver could reach it. Ghattas said, “This device is full of sensors. It picks up resistance from this area or that, and there are a lot of lights on the dashboard.” We worked on this project for nine months, much longer than I thought it would take, but we’re happy with how it turned out. It’s a mix of a sports car and a big truck, and yesterday, I drove it to the Dolphins game. This made my car feel like a Ferrari and let me drive over bumps. Ghatta brought up the instruments. All of them are connected to the R1T’s suspension, which is made up of air springs and adjustable dampers that are linked mechanically. Ghattas thinks that this makes it stand out, and it took a lot of trial and error to get these systems to work well with SoFlo’s unique technology. “We used a whole set of airbags and blew them all up,” Ghattas said, “because even a small change in angle can have a big effect.” We had to copy all of the very tight standards that were used to build this item. Active safety features, which brought a whole new set of problems when that extreme design was put on, can be compared. In contrast to Apocalypse, known for customizing trucks with angled fenders and other changes, the Rivian uses a complete set of integrated body sensors to send information for adaptive cruise control, automatic steering, and automatic stopping. The truck’s super-aggressive fiberglass body parts had to be changed. On the other hand, Ghattas thought it was all worth it. Ghattas said, “If I had seen that car, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.” From the outside, it looks like a Kia. But once you’re inside, it moves quickly and is a truly unforgettable event. As I looked at it, I saw that it had about 1,000 horsepower and could go from 0 to 60 in about two seconds. So we started fixing it. We gave the truck a whole new body, raised it to fit 38-inch tires, and put a nice skid plate on the bottom to be used off-road. They had already worked hard to work out the torque vectoring and electric motor configuration, so all I had to do was raise it and keep it in place. Ghattas loves the R1T so much that he wants Rivian, SoFlo Customs, and Apocalypse Manufacturing to work together in the future. After what we talked about, he said: “I can’t believe how advanced Rivian’s technology is?” It’s a fantastic pickup truck. The only thing going against me is how I look, and I would kill to be Shelby or Brabus from Rivian. Anyone interested can buy the Apocalypse Nirvana quad-motor truck for about $150,000.
