7 mods to ramp up the sex appeal on your American trailer-hauler

“Friends don’t let friends drive unmodified vehicles.” We all know that statement to be a self-evident truth, right? That’s why we thought we’d throw together a quick hit list of some of the basic mods that’ll make your brand-new American draft horse look cooler than a polar bear’s nether regions. Because let’s be honest, faded plastic bumpers, stock rims with cheese-cutter tyres and standard power figures at the wheels are nobody’s idea of a fun night at the drive-in.

However, throw a few bucks at the right areas of your rig and all of a sudden, your 98lb weakling is transformed into the Charles Atlas of 4X4s – envy of the caravan park, boat ramp or dark desert highway (🎵 cool wind in your hair).

Anyway, here’s how to apply the right kind of lipstick to your tow pig.

Wheels (dark-coloured vehicles)

Darker rigs love a rim that flashes a bit of colour or brightness to contrast with the shady tones of the panel work. You can always go with black rims for the ‘murdered out’ look, but for our money, this sweet set of chrome Moto Metal MO809 Stinger alloys really set the rest of the vehicle off.

Wheels (light-coloured vehicles)

When it comes to lighter-shaded vehicles, the contrast rule still applies, only this time, we’ll go for a darker set of rolling stock to offset the sea of blinding brightness.

You can still use coloured rims here, but the idea is that the wheels and bodywork complement each other, so choose accordingly. We’ve gone for a set of satin black KMC 235 Grenade Crawl alloys on our Ram, which look amazing.

Wheels (in-the-middle-coloured vehicles)

If your steed falls somewhere in the middle of the colour spectrum – we’re talking the blues, reds and greens of the hue range here – then the world is your oyster, and you can go for either chrome, blacked out or coloured rims.

We’ve gone for a set of bronze Fuel D617 Podium rims on our blue Ram, which match with the paint scheme extremely nicely.

Bar work

There’s a huge range of bar work on the market for American ‘trucks’ and if you’re heading out past the boonies, then you’d be mad not to protect your investment from the very real possibility (which becomes a certainty at certain places at the right time of year or environmental conditions) of animal strikes.

Steel or alloy bars come down to personal preference, but for our money, a well-designed alloy bar like this Rival aluminium front bar for our Next-Gen Ranger comes with in-built LED fog lights, an integrated winch mount and plenty of room for spotties or a lightbar (another must in our view).

Tyres

Probably the standout feature of a vehicle, looks-wise, are the tyres you choose to go with. A new set of rims and suspension is a great excuse to go up a size or two over factory. But keep in mind that much more than a 50mm increase in rolling diameter will start blurring the lines of legality (depending on where you live).

Then you have the choice between HT, AT or mud-terrains. Unless you’re spending more than 80% of your driving time off-road, there is not much need to go for MT rubber, especially given the accelerated noise and wear rates of the more aggressive tread pattern. If you’re the type of person that spends all their time on the blacktop, then HTs are your huckleberry.

If you’re somewhere in the middle, a solid set of ATs will straddle the line between road manners and off-road capability perfectly. We’ve gone with a set of Toyo Open Country ATs on our Ranger

Suspension

This one is a real “how long is a piece of string?” modification that can set the ride quality and weight-bearing capability (which is directly related to tow comfort) of your vehicle. There are almost limitless options varying from mild to wild for pretty much any vehicle on the market, but for a tow-tug, we’d recommend keeping things to a 50mm lift and maybe a set of uprated or helper springs in the back to handle the ball weight of your trailer.

For our Chevy Silverado 1500, we’d check out the range of ReadyLIFT Suspension gear and lay down the credit card digits accordingly.

Tuning

Lugging a trailer that’s nudging 3T fully laden is enough to sap the killer wasps and Burt Newtonmetres from even the gruntiest of engines, not to mention drain your fuel tank faster than a politician helping themselves to a taxpayer-funded bar tab.

The answer is to get your vehicle (and maybe transmission) tuned by a reputable dyno-operator. Now, you may think that tuning is reserved for folks chasing large amounts of power, but a good tune will not only bump your torque up by a healthy percentage (around 20% on average) but will also reduce fuel consumption due to the fact your engine no longer has to work as hard to pull your trailer along.

The only downside to a good tune is having to pay for it. After that, it’s all gravy, baby.