He's not your average dad, he's a cool dad.
If you're a child of the '90s and grew up in a larger family, you just might've been lucky enough for your parents to own a Ford Excursion, or knew someone who did. At the time, my dad was a diehard GM guy, so we were a Suburban and Tahoe family, but I always envied my friends who had Excursions. They were a little bigger, a little louder, a little more rugged, and offered a diesel engine. It was the king of SUVs. But no king can reign forever, and the Ford Excursion went extinct after 2005 due to ever-changing market demand and rising gas prices.
However, there's still a good amount of these beasts still in commission. If you're patient enough, you can still hunt down good examples of these rigs, and Randy Bales' 2005 might be the best one still in commission.
Randy is a proud dad of two, an insurance guru by trade, and a diehard automotive enthusiast who lives by the mantra: "I keep nothing stock." He bought the rig bone stock as a decommissioned Montana State Police vehicle. Since then, it has undergone extensive modifications and he put a lot of that work in himself. But the build was never really about him. He wanted to spend more time with his kids out in the wilderness on the weekends, instead of them sitting in front of screens.
If you're heading south on US-285, or west on I-70 out of Denver, you might just see the beast heading into the wilderness to make some memories. He's also taken the rig south of the border, where he invests his time in non-profit work building homes in tough communities.
Get the full overview of this beast of a build in our video with Randy below. You can follow along on his adventures at @dadvan_overland on Instagram. For more 4x4 content, follow along over at @ocn_rigs on Instagram.
