Florida customizer Eddie DeJesus knows all about understatements. How else could he describe a 1,600-watt, fully re-imagined '01 Chevy S-10 pickup as "nothing really elaborate?"
"It's a basic system," DeJesus says of the truck's A/V setup. "There are cars out there on the competition circuit that have a lot more equipment, a lot more elaborate systems, but our main concern was keeping everything well-balanced."
As a competition and show truck for DeJesus' employer, DLS America, the other goal for the S-10 was outstanding sound quality. "We really tried to create a home audio type of environment in the vehicle," he explains of the truck, originally built in 2004 with the help of DLS installer Joe Moreira. "We've made changes every year-this year it was adding the tube amplifiers-but we really just wanted to get the best possible sound quality that we could from what we had."
The truck has competed on the IASCA circuit for the past three years and was named World Champion in Pro Street at the '06 IASCA World Finals. It also took second place in Sound Quality at IASCA that year and has been among the top three entrants in the category at Finals every year. DeJesus is bringing the S-10 to CES 2008 and plans to take it on the road to several competitions in Mexico, Columbia and South America later in 2008.
Looking Good
Although the S-10's system was designed around high-performance audio, video wasn't entirely left out of the picture. An Exonic 10.4-inch LCD monitor was molded into the dash and a second 7-inch LCD was mounted in the passenger's overhead visor. An iPod, docked dead center in the middle of the reworked console, supplies both monitors with video.