Married couples who both love cars tend to end up with a house full of projects. One person’s daily driver eventually becomes the other person’s excuse to open a parts catalog, and pretty soon nothing in the driveway is allowed to stay factory for long. That is more or less the arrangement between Devin and his wife, Bobby, whose garage history already includes a Mitsubishi Evo build, an Acura NSX build, and a 765-based project.
So when Bobby’s turn came around, it was never really a question of if her truck would get modified. It was only a matter of when. Her 2025 GMC Sierra 1500 Elevation, ordered new about a year earlier in white with black leather and a 3.0-liter Duramax diesel, had been sitting stock while the rest of the family fleet got attention.
Devin had already bought her a Christmas pile of parts to fix that, but life got in the way and the truck stayed untouched for months. When he finally cleared the schedule to install everything, the goal was simple. Get the Sierra off its factory ride height and onto something that actually matched how the rest of the household rolls.
Why a spacer was never going to cut it
The easiest way to level out a GMC 1500 is a basic spacer kit. Unbolt the factory shock, drop in about an inch and a half of spacer, bolt it back together, and call it a day. Devin considered that option and moved on from it almost immediately.
Instead, Bobby’s Sierra got a full Rough Country coilover setup with adjustable ride height and remote reservoirs up front, paired with Vertex 2.5 piggyback shocks in the rear. It is the kind of suspension upgrade usually reserved for trucks that see real off-road use, not a daily driver that mostly handles winter commutes and grocery runs. Once everything was bolted in, the front end sat lower than the rear and needed to come up about an inch to match, which meant a trip for an alignment before the geometry was truly finished.
New wheels, a meaner tire, and a truck that finally looks the part
With the suspension sorted, the Sierra moved on to a set of Mamba M28 wheels in a 20×9 zero offset fitment, a noticeable change from the factory 20×9 wheels and their roughly 28 millimeter offset, by the builder’s own estimate. The tires went a step further, with a set of Toyo Open Country A/T3s in a 285/60R20 size replacing the factory rubber. Devin runs the same all-terrain tire on his own 2500, and he was candid about worrying he had gone too aggressive for his wife’s taste.
New wheels also meant new lug nuts, since the factory hardware did not fit the aftermarket setup, which sent Bobby on a last-minute parts run before the truck could finally touch the ground. The end result pulled the wheels out flush with the fenders in a way the factory offset never allowed, giving the Sierra the kind of stance that stock trucks in this segment rarely get to show off.
A bed cover that does more than the truck probably needs
Suspension and wheels were only part of the build. Devin also installed a powered retractable bed cover from Wolfbox, a job that involved sealing the bed, drilling for drain tubes, and assembling the cover’s electric motor before it ever touched the truck. The finished unit carries an 800 pound load capacity and opens through four separate methods, including a side button, the key fob, and a phone app.
Rough Country electric running boards followed, replacing the factory fixed steps with a powered set that extends automatically. Devin closed out the build with smaller details that mattered just as much to Bobby, swapping the mirror caps from white back to factory black and replacing several chrome badges with black ones to match the truck’s black edition trim.
The reveal, and the line that explains all of it
When Bobby finally saw the finished truck, her reaction covered everything from the lift to the bed cover’s app control, which she had no idea existed until Devin walked her through it. She called herself a truck girl for the first time, which is a fairly significant admission from someone married to a man who has built an Evo, an NSX, and a 765-based project.
The real explanation for why any of this happened at all came earlier in the build, when Devin pushed the front suspension as low as the adjustable coilovers would allow and said he was not interested in the kind of stock, sky-high stance he jokingly compared to “Grandpa John.” For a couple whose garage never sits still for long, a factory ride height was never going to be the ending point. It was just the starting line for another build.
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*Research for this article included AI assistance, with all final content reviewed by human editors.
