Built from the remains of a mint 2000-model year Ford Excursion, this desert-ready buggy from JD3.com made for one hell of an eBay Find ( item no. 281372314452) this week. Its creator, Jeremy Dixon, hails from Tucson, Arizona, and comes from a rather eclectic yet interesting background in constructing his own takes on factory vehicles–Jeeps turned into pickup trucks, lifted semi-trucks, numerous sand rails and rock crawlers, and so on.
In this latest creation from the mad lab at JD3.com, the end result has been dubbed the “RockZilla.” Street legal, painted, and lacking body panels, the monstrous buggy has all the capabilities you would expect from a custom-made four-wheeler, combined with the subtlety of a battleship.
Internally, the RockZilla is powered by a 14-year-old V10 Modular engine, cranking out a gnarly 310 horsepower and 425 pound-feet of torque to the oversized 54-inch Michelin radials (double-beadlocked, naturally) on all fours. A 44-gallon gas tank affords the driver over 400 miles of trailblazing fury, so it’ll burn you at the pump, but reward you in the Mojave.
A six-square-foot trunk has the space to accommodate the cooler of beer, sleeping bags, and firewood you need to camp out at night, while the cylindrical, military-grade pods just astern of the leather seats can handle necessities like flares, gloves, flashlights, and emergency rations of Slim Jims.
With right around four days left until the listing closes, the Rockzilla sits perched with a price tag of $72,000 Buy It Now. What do you think? Is it worth the near-Raptor level of cash? Or should it drop a few thousand bucks to get you intrigued? Pop down below and give us your two cents.