Long before there was the Ford Flex there was today’s limited edition Funkmaster Flex Expedition. It’s still fresh, but will its price have you saying in Flex we trust?
When it comes to pickup trucks there’s a battle waged over space utilization—do I want a big bed at the expense of some stretching room in the cabin, or do I wan’t some extra lockable space up front at the cost of that bed space?
With yesterday’s custom the answer was an unequivocalneither as it rocked both a short cab and a short bed. Of course, the point of that truck wasn’t hauling, it was hauling ass. Oh boy, that joke never gets old. Sadly for the seller of that custom F150, 65 percent of you weren’t about to haul out your wallets for the truck’s $39,500 asking price.
Today we’re sticking with Ford, but we’re going to go much cheaper, and a whole lot funkier.
Have you ever been to a SEMA Show, the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association orgy of the outrageous held annually in Las Vegas? It’s sort of like Burning Man for the car industry. It’s also quite frequently a venue where auto makers allow the famous and near-famous the chance to serve up a custom take on some model that perhaps is in need of some buzz.
That was the case at the 2005 SEMA show when Ford gave a Fusion and an F150 to DJ Rapper Funkmaster Flex (aka Aston George Taylor Jr.) so that he might apply his aesthetic imprint on each. Apparently Ford and Flex hit it off since he was back at SEMA with a signature Expedition the very next year. That model was so fly that Ford went to the length of putting it into limited production for 2008.
Here we have one of those , one of 650 the company built before feeling like they had banked their fill of East Coast cred.
The Funk was pretty pervasive on these huge truckwagons, including custom two tone smack-yo-ass-red and black paint, 20-inch chrome alloys, bumper and sill extensions, unique embroidered leather upholstery, FMF badges, and a series number applied to a plaque on the console.
This one has the paint and the seats, but strangely it lacks the custom front bumper and red painted horizontal grille expected of an FMF truck. In their place are a standard bumper and what looks to be an aftermarket grille in black. Perhaps, there’s some front end repair in this truck’s history.
Another kind of important thing that’s missing here is the center console lid with the series number and related Funkmaster’s signature. You can see where it once lived there in the dash, right ahead of the cherry red shift lever. In its place is four mounting holes and a whole lot of aww-shit!
While the funk that remains is all over this truck, it’s only skin deep. There were no changes to the mechanicals. That means you can expect a 300 horsepower 5.4-litre V8 under the hood—see, there it is—and six-speed automatic backing that up. All-wheel drive adds both inclement weather stability and weight, bringing the truck up to a stout 5,575 pounds in total. A 28-gallon fuel tank to feed the heavy beast means you’ll be the most hated person at the Costco gas pumps come Saturday.
While it’s got some missing bits, the parts that are there look to be in pretty decent shape, I mean for almost 10 years old and 147,000 miles. There does appear to be a sizable dent on the hood behind the bug guard and the headlights show signs of sandblasting, but other than that it’s all preasonablyclean and tidy.
The truck under the Funk is a Limited so it has all the bells and whistles you could imagine, including a power third row and 2008 Nav. Hopefully it doesn’t also have all the squeaks and rattles its age might imply. The ad notes that it comes with a clean title and recent smog check.
If you’re looking for a big truck with a lot of Funk, this might just be your ride. The asking price is $8,500, and while the Flexmaster connection may not have held up as a value enhancer over time, you can bet you’ll be the only one in the carpool line rocking his FMF badge on your fenders.
What do you think, does this custom Expedition seem like it’s worth that $8,500 asking? Or, is that a price that needs some flex?
You decide!
Charlotte, NC , or go if the ad disappears.
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