Appearances are deceiving. From the outside one might think a major regional chain like Al & Ed's Autosound sells mobile audio gear like the big box retailers and doesn't do much more than head unit swaps and fast upgrades. And one might think that this SSR is just a slightly modified vehicle. In fact, Al & Ed's does highly customized systems for many of its clients; and this SSR has more to it than meets the eye, as is clear from this editorial spread.
This demo vehicle built to highlight the company's product offerings and their installation prowess made its debut at the L.A. Auto Show in January of 2006 and has been on the road ever since, wowing audiences up and down the West Coast with its unique styling and its get-over-here-and-check-this-out design.
"The concept for us was really to bring to the consumer the understanding that Al & Ed's, which is a 52-year-old company, isn't stuck in the '50s," says Chief Technology Buyer John Haynes. "We're a progressive company that's doing good design work with good installers and good concepts." That may be an understatement; after all, the designer behind this SSR was Mike Vu who has created a couple of incredible demo vehicles for Alpine, including the Ultimate Listening Machine.
The SSR, Haynes says, hits all of those points perfectly. Its retro look was ideal for the 1950s theme they wanted, while the Eclipse A/V system and other add-ons they designed placed everything firmly in the 21st century. Oh, and of course, what southern California truck would be complete without an integrated barbeque grill and a 32-inch LCD display?
Appropriately enough, Haynes and Co. sketched out their "Ultimate Tailgater" on a restaurant napkin - obviously they had food on their minds when conceiving the mobile barbeque - before handing over the reins to Vu to work out the various modifications that would be required to make it happen.
Party in the backThe first challenge naturally was figuring out a way to take the concept and make it a reality. The design was focused on the SSR's bed area - home to the aforementioned gas grill, 32-inch Vizio LCD monitor, a KVH Tracvision DirecTV antenna, and the Eclipse amps and subs - so the team knew early on that the installation would require overcoming some serious hurdles.
For starters, the tonneau cover had to be reworked, as the factory hinges couldn't handle the additional weight. "I had to reengineer the whole setup," Vu says, "so instead of tilting back, it just stays horizontal and rises up."
Once he strengthened the factory tonneau, he was able to install the satellite dish on top and mount the LCD so that it folds down from the cover's underbelly. "It's like the typical flip-down overhead LCD screen," he explains, "but we just made it on a bigger scale."
As it turned out, that was the easy part; integrating the grill into the overall design was the real challenge. "We couldn't make anything too curvy because the barbeque grill is basically a square box, so everything kind of revolved around the grill. We had to make it seem like it was made for that truck and the panels around it."
In order to fit everything into the bed, Vu mounted the grill onto a motorized tray that slides out onto the tailgate. A custom cooler fits behind the grill while a specially sized propane tank feeds the flames from under the rear fender. Body-wise, Axiom grille bars were added for an extra touch of style, with replacement AE wheels (22" in the front, 24" in the rear) and Eibach lowering springs rounding out the look.
It's a standout, but the SSR's real calling card is the motor and hinge system that brings it all together. Just push a button to raise the tonneau cover, flip down the LCD and slide out the grill simultaneously.
Fire it upFor the interior, Haynes wanted to keep everything as simple as possible. "Back in the 1950s, all of the pickup trucks that came off the assembly line basically had the same metal dashboard painted the same as the outside of the car," he says. "So what we did was take some of the same panels from the hatch and painted them to kind of pull that '50s retro look back into the design." Red and black leather seat panels were installed to mimic that same theme.
Vu installed the Eclipse AVN5495 DVD/navigation head unit directly into the factory dash, using a set of 6 1/2" Eclipse 3-way component speakers to create the front soundstage. The speakers were mounted into custom-made door panels that were molded from fiberglass to match the dash.
Back in the bed, Vu crafted a subwoofer box for the 10" Eclipse subs and installed them up against the cab. To cover the rear soundstage, a 3-way set of 5 1/2" Eclipse components were mounted into the tonneau, while three amplifiers - two for the subs, one for the components - sit on the bed itself.
It's no daily driver - "you can't really even fit a map in there," Haynes admits - but for the Al & Ed's crew this SSR works. "It sounds awesome, and we liked the idea of kind of merging everything with the vehicle. I think it came off 100 percent."