Fat Fender Garage of Gilbert, Arizona, says more than 15,000 hours went into GT/FX, a 1956 Ford F-100 built for the SEMA Show. A 5.0-liter Coyote V8 wearing a 3.0-liter Whipple supercharger is rated at 800 horsepower and 750 lb-ft of torque. Most of the labor went into an all-new chassis and suspension.
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Over 15,000 hours on a 1956 F-100 called GT/FX
Carscoops writer Brad Anderson reported on Nov. 3 that the truck is the work of Fat Fender Garage, with the shop’s founder, Jason Noel, quoted on the result. Noel said the truck shows how far a classic pickup can be pushed, and the hours figure the outlet gives is over 15,000, much of it spent on the chassis and suspension. The body panels are hand-crafted steel, including flared front and rear wheel arches, and the finish is silver with black running stripes.
The Carscoops report is the only account of GT/FX available, and it does not say where the truck sits on the SEMA floor. Fat Fender’s own site, which describes frame-off custom builds on its own chassis under the tagline “From chassis to cab,” did not mention the truck, SEMA 2026 or the hours when checked. The 15,000-hour number is therefore the outlet’s reporting of the shop’s claim, and no timesheet or build log backs it.
A Coyote V8 and Whipple supercharger making 800 horsepower
The 800-horsepower rating comes from the 5.0-liter Ford Coyote V8 with a 3.0-liter supercharger from Whipple, a family-owned Fresno company founded in 1987 that sells twin-screw kits. A bespoke Borla system handles exhaust, and a 10-speed automatic sends the power to the rear wheels. Carscoops gives the torque as 750 lb-ft, and describes the 800 horsepower and 750 lb-ft as combined figures for the setup.
Whipple’s company page lists Mustang among its vehicle categories but does not say which Coyote generations its kits cover, so the pairing in GT/FX rests on the Carscoops description. Carscoops also notes a rear diffuser borrowed from the Ford Mustang GT350, a custom chin splitter, running boards and stainless bumpers.
The rating has a factory yardstick. A Ford Performance kit covered by Carscoops in March 2026 uses a 3.0-liter twin-screw supercharger developed with Whipple and lists 810 horsepower and 615 lb-ft for the Mustang GT and Dark Horse with the optional active exhaust, or 800 horsepower without it. On an F-150 with the 5.0-liter V8 the same kit is rated at 700 horsepower and 590 lb-ft, and it costs $10,250 for the truck and $10,500 for the Mustang. GT/FX claims 800 horsepower in a body that dates to 1956, with a hand-built chassis rather than a stock one.
Stopping power is Wilwood, with six-piston front calipers and four-piston rear calipers. FF1 performance coilovers lower the ride height significantly, and custom HRE wheels carry wide Toyo Proxes Sport 2 tires. Inside, Carscoops lists new leather details, bucket seats, a climate system hidden in the dash, new gauges, door actuators and an audio system.
Power has long been the selling point of Coyote-swapped Ford pickups. A 2020 Carscoops report described an F-100 fitted with the 5.2-liter flat-plane-crank Voodoo V8 from a Mustang Shelby GT350, rated at 526 horsepower and 429 lb-ft and paired with a six-speed manual, which sold at Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale in January 2020. GT/FX claims roughly 50 percent more output than that truck.
Fat Fender’s earlier Coyote-and-Whipple F-100s
GT/FX is not the shop’s first supercharged Coyote F-100. In March 2025, FordMuscle covered a 1956 F100 called Merlow, which Noel presented as “the baddest 1956 Ford ever built.” It used a new Porterbuilt chassis that Noel said was designed for 750 horsepower, and the same 5.0-liter Coyote with a 3.0-liter Whipple. An April 2025 piece on Engine Swap Depot, sourced to the shop’s YouTube channel, described a 1967 F-100 with that engine pairing and a Tremec Magnum six-speed manual.
A third truck, covered by In The Garage Media, was a 1956 F-100 commissioned by Steve Horn as a tribute to the truck of his high school days. Its panels were taken to bare metal with no paint or filler, and the piece calls it the first truck in the shop’s Designer Series. Fat Fender’s site describes that series as aimed at one-of-a-kind trucks. It also lists a Gen II Coyote with a Holley Terminator X Max EFI system, a 6R80 transmission and a Currie 9-inch rear axle with 3.70:1 gearing, a different mechanical recipe from GT/FX.
SEMA’s 2026 show fills the Las Vegas Convention Center from Nov. 3 through Nov. 6. Carscoops names no price for GT/FX and no buyer, and nothing yet shows whether the truck is a commission like Horn’s or a shop showpiece. The one measurable claim in the report, over 15,000 hours, remains Fat Fender’s own, and the only public record of it so far is a single Carscoops article from Nov. 3.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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