One Last Truck: The Triple-Turbo Cummins '58 Apache Behind Killer Creations

Three turbochargers feed the diesel in this 1958 Chevy Apache. The biggest, a 73mm unit, blows into a pair of 68mm turbos, and the whole compound stack feeds a built 6.7-liter Cummins in a truck that wears a 1950s cab, the front half of a Tahoe frame and a widebody kit designed for a Mustang. It drifts. It has a hydraulic handbrake. And according to Diesel World, it started with a line every builder has said at least once: "let's build one last truck."

The truck belongs to Jeffrey McHaddad and his father, Jeff. It is the signature build of Killer Creations, the custom fabrication shop Jeffrey now runs in Middleton, Idaho, and Diesel Army and Diesel World tell the same origin story: the shop exists because of the reaction this truck got at SEMA.

On Thursday, Nov. 5, we found it parked outside one of the convention center's glass walls after dark, wing up. The door reads Killer Creations Custom Fabrication, Jeff D. McHaddad is lettered above the windshield, and Creative Wraps logos sit on the bed side and the wing endplate. Diesel Army credits the geometric purple, black and gray wrap to Creative Wraps ID.

A parking lot, a $3,000 Dodge and parts already in the family

The build did not start in a shop of its own. Jeffrey was working at Mayhem Metal Works in Simi Valley, California, and both outlets say he traded his help around the shop for space to build. The truck came together in the shop's parking lot.

The drivetrain came from a one-owner 1997 Dodge with a Cummins and a manual transmission, bought for $3,000 from a friend, according to Diesel World (Diesel Army says about $3,000). The sheet metal was already in the family: a 1958 Apache cab and front clip, a 1964 C10 bed and a 1973 C10 front bumper. Underneath, the front half of a 2004 Chevy Tahoe frame is chopped just behind the cab, and everything behind that is a hand-built 1.75-inch DOM tube chassis.

Diesel World quotes Jeffrey on what the two of them were after: a truck they could "drive to the store and not worry about locking it." That is a modest goal for something that ended up with three turbos and a rear wing.

Clinched, a deadline and a Mustang body kit

The widebody is a Clinched kit made for a 2019 Mustang, trimmed and reshaped to fit old Chevy sheet metal. Diesel World says the wide body solved a packaging problem: it let the McHaddads fit very wide tires without narrowing the axle housings.

Clinched also changed the schedule. According to Diesel World, the company spotted the build about a month in and offered a SEMA spot with the show three months away, and the truck was finished in about four months total, with a final all-hands push inside Mayhem Metal Works. Diesel Army describes the same turn: once Clinched put the truck on its SEMA radar, it became a deadline build. Diesel Army also says it was first known as the "Divergent Chevy" before it carried the Killer Creations name.

Three turbos and a built 6.7

The first engine in the truck was the 12-valve Cummins out of that 1997 Dodge, per Diesel World. The current engine is a built 6.7-liter Cummins, bored .020 inch over, with a Hamilton 188/220 cam, Hamilton pushrods and valve springs, a ported and polished head, Wagler Street Fighter rods, injectors 100 percent over stock and a 12mm CP3 pump. Both outlets list the same parts, and both mention the next step: 200 percent over injectors and a 14mm CP3, work planned at Darkside Diesel.

The turbo setup grew in stages. Diesel World says it went from one big turbo to a compound pair and then to the current triple compound arrangement, a 73mm atmosphere turbo feeding two 68mm turbos. Diesel Army describes stainless plumbing and short exhaust runners. A Mishimoto intercooler and transmission cooler live at the back of the truck, and an AEM CD-7 digital dash keeps watch over boost, exhaust gas temperature and the rest.

Nobody has published a dyno number. Diesel Army puts the output in the four-digit range and leaves it there, and so do we.

Power goes through a six-speed Allison for now, with parts from CA-Conversions, according to Diesel World, which says a built 48RE with a full manual valve body and a ratchet shifter is planned.

Built to go sideways

The suspension reads like an off-road truck that wandered onto a drift course. Up front, custom upper and lower control arms widen the track 1.75 inches per side over stock, on Sway-A-Way 2.5x8 coilovers. In back, long trailing arms locate the axle on the tube chassis, with Sway-A-Way 2.5x12 coilovers. Wilwood brakes do the stopping, 14-inch rotors with six-piston calipers in front and 12-inch rotors with four-piston calipers in back, and the hydraulic handbrake is there for starting slides.

Wheels are TIS, 20x10 in front and 20x12 in back. Diesel World says custom wheels were not possible on the timeline, so the McHaddads test-fitted several TIS sizes until the stance worked. The tires are Toyo Proxes R888R, a race tire, which is a telling choice for a diesel truck.

Inside, Diesel Army lists a full roll cage tied into the tube chassis, fixed-back racing seats and a quick-release steering wheel. From the outside on Nov. 5, the cage, red harnesses and the bars running back to the wing mounts were all visible through the glass.

From SEMA truck to a business

This is not the Apache's first SEMA. Diesel World places it at the 2022 show, where it drew a strong reaction. Diesel Army says the truck debuted at SEMA earlier and returned in 2022 in its purple livery. The two accounts disagree on the first year, so we will say only that it has been to SEMA before, and that by both accounts the reception there is what pushed Jeffrey to open Killer Creations.

In a show full of trucks built to sit pretty, this one is built to work: a diesel with drift hardware, a cage and a wing, assembled from a family's spare parts in somebody else's parking lot. It was supposed to be the last truck. Both outlets say the next one is already underway, a 1959 Chevy with a Duramax diesel.