The Fodge: An Odd Mash-Up Of Ford, Dodge, And Diesel

We took a side street in Victorian Square in Sparks, Nevada, during the Hot August Nights celebration, and ran smack dab into one of the most original builds we’ve seen recently. “I call it the Fodge,” said owner Larry Strawn.

We stumbled on this odd machine at the Hot August Nights’ event in Sparks, Nevada, earlier this year. We had no idea that this strange kustom had a large following, and was a routine winner at the drag strips.

The Fodge name is born out of combining the two basic elements of this build: a Ford and a Dodge. “I even have an emblem for the new breed,” Larry pointed out.

The two most immediate questions that came to mind when we spotted this beast were: What is it, and why did you build it?

Where It All Began

“It all started with the Model A when I bought it back in 1970,” Larry explained. “When I bought it, we took it back to stock, and it was fun to drive and people liked it.” The story could end there and it would still be a neat build that Larry and his wife Trish could be proud of.

The crew at Jefferson State Diesel rebuilt the 12-valve engine to give it a little extra boost and power.

The 1931 Model A was the last year for the highly successful nameplate for the Ford Motor Company. The Model A actually replaced one of the most popular and influential cars of all time, the Model T. By the end of 1931, Ford had sold over four million Model A’s that were available in nine different body styles. It could be argued that the Model A Ford was the most important car of the century.

The engine had been upgraded by the time we saw it at the Hot August Nights’ event.

That alone makes a 1931 Model A worth owning and building. Larry found that he drove the car less and less as he focused on operating his logging business, and the car seemed to be taking up valuable space in the shop. The car was frequently in the way and needed to be moved around, and was eventually kicked outside where it resided for the next 25 years.

Brought Back From The Grave

As Larry got closer to retirement, he began to think about what he could do with the old coupe. He thought about hot rodding the Ford by putting some muscle under the hood, like a more modern small-block Chevy. “There’s a million of those, and I didn’t want just another hot rod,” he stated. “Then I thought about making it four-wheel drive with a big-block Chevy powerplant.”

One day, Larry happened to find a 1997 Dodge truck that sported four-wheel-drive and the torque of a big-block in one neat little package. With the drivetrain sourced, it was simply a matter of getting the Ford body positioned on the Dodge chassis. “This is an all custom build,” Strawn assured us.

Full custom, inside and outside.

Larry and his mechanic, Frank Harder, narrowed the Dodge chassis down to 32 inches wide to match the Ford’s track. Adapting the all-steel body to the chassis still took some fabrication effort. Add in a little bit of wiring and beef up the suspension and drivetrain, and you have an original custom build. A Fodge, if you will.

The Fodge in all of its splendor.

His first outing at the 1/16-mile drags at Hot August Nights in Reno, saw the four-wheel drive monster launch out of the hole quicker than most cars, even those that were much faster. He knew then that he had a tough combination.

A few more trips to local tracks delivered decent results, and that convinced Strawn to put some horsepower upgrades into the engine.

This incredible build gets plenty of attention wherever it goes.

Enter Jefferson State Diesel

Well known in northern California, Jefferson State Diesel operates a diesel performance shop in Redding, California, and they work on all three of the popular pickup truck diesel engines: Duramax, Powerstroke, and Cummins. They started with a simple and straightforward-designed 5.9-liter 12-valve Cummins, because the engine has a reputation for reliability, solid engineering, and torque to spare.

The humble 12-valve Cummins engine was originally manufactured for use in tractors, that is until the engineers at Dodge decided to shoehorn them into the engine bay of the 1989 Dodge Ram. At that time, the engine was rated at 160-horsepower and delivered 400 lb-ft. of torque.

The crew at Jefferson State Diesel initially utilized both a 64 mm and an 82 mm sequentially-mounted turbochargers, pushing a combined total of 85 psi of boost. The team then modified the injection pump to keep up with this hungry beast. The internals were beefed up to support the extra power, and the automatic transmission’s valvebody was modified to support manual shifting. All of the piping and exhaust was custom built by Jefferson State Diesel.

By the time we caught up with Larry at the 2016 Hot August Nights event, the Jefferson State Diesel crew had custom built a three turbo system for the Fodge. They added a larger fuel pump to go with the triple turbo setup, and now Larry pulls the front wheels off the ground on launch, and rarely loses a race.

Larry is more than pleased with his Fodge and how the beast has been received by the public. He has fans wherever the diesel-powered monster races. The Fodge has a following on Facebook, several YouTube videos, and is a favorite on Pinterest and Instagram. Despite the accolades, Larry admits to already working on the next iteration of this combination. “Get ready for Fodge II,” he told us.