TV show 'tricks' Blanchard driver's truck
TV show 'tricks' Blanchard driver's truck
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By Jerry Wofford
Published: July 20, 2007
ROBERT LaGrange walked back to his loaded 18-wheeler at a Joplin, Mo., truck stop as he normally does on his Missouri run. However, this time he noticed something different.
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Hard times
LaGrange and his wife, Teresa, who met while in the Navy stationed at Pearl Harbor, said they want to provide their daughter everything.
When their daughter, Danielle, was born, the focus of the family turned to her.
"My wife and I, we wanted to give my daughter everything we never had. So, our whole life is our daughter,” he said.
To help do that, Robert LaGrange had to log many miles on the road, and that took its toll on his 2001 Freightliner.
Before the makeover, LaGrange said his truck was literally falling apart.
"It was getting pretty ragged,” he said. "I didn't know how I was going to make it. We dug in everything we had to keep it going.”
On top of truck problems, Teresa LaGrange survived a heart attack. To help pay the bills and keep up, LaGrange had to spend more time on the road.
"I had to hunker down and keep running,” he said. LaGrange said his daughter submitted his name in the contest for the custom truck makeover as a way to say thanks for all his hard work.
"She wanted to turn me in on this thing because she wanted to do something nice for me, because we've always wanted to do everything for her. That was the way she wanted to give us some payback,” he said.
Danielle is about to enter her first semester at the University of Oklahoma, and Robert said that is a dream come true for him.
"That was our dream, to be able to give her the opportunity. My wife and I never even had the opportunity to go to college; it just wasn't an option,” he said.
Tricked truck
LaGrange said his reaction to the news of the makeover put him on a high he is still riding.
"I went back there, and they were all around my truck, and I was busting up. I was wound up tighter than an eight-day clock,” he said, while doing what he called his happy dance, which was a hit with the cast and crew of the show.
The Chrome Shop Mafia men basically gutted LaGrange's truck and started from scratch.
They installed chrome around the instrument panels, gear shift, grill, exhaust pipes and many other surfaces.
The outside of the truck shows an airbrushed submarine, to represent LaGrange's service on the submarine USS Hawkbill in the Pacific Ocean. Tiny bubbles from the submarine and depth charges are shown in great detail.
The cab of the truck is ocean blue with insets on the seats and doors to look like bubbles.
In the sleeper, LaGrange has his own virtual aquarium. Starfish and other sea creatures hang from the coral to create the underwater feel. Accent lights add to the effect, and at night, LaGrange said it is like being underwater.
Of all the features in the truck, LaGrange said his favorite part is, well, everything.
"The whole dang thing is my favorite part of this truck,” he said. "There's nothing on there that I'm just not crazy about. I just can't describe how happy I am with that truck.”
While hauling a load behind the tricked-out USS LaGrange, he knows where the appreciation goes: his daughter and wife.
"I still can't ever thank her enough,” he said.
"She's my whole world. Her and my wife are my whole life. They're my whole life. I couldn't make it without 'em.”
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