After initial hesitation because of the destructive image it would convey, Chandler eventually agreed to perform at the event in April of the following year in what is believed to be the first public car crush. When Chandler began playing the video in his shop, a man promoting a motorsports event in Columbia, Missouri, asked him to duplicate the stunt in front of a crowd. In 1981, Chandler placed two dilapidated cars in a field, so that Chandler could videotape himself crushing the cars with Bigfoot as a joke. The truck's growing popularity led to its appearance in the 1981 Gus Trikonis film Take This Job and Shove It (which also features the early monster truck USA-1 credited under a different name).Ĭhandler's next experiment would prove revolutionary. This modification drew attention and Chandler started making appearances at tractor pulls and car shows with his newly christened 'Bigfoot' (so named for Chandler's heavy-footed racing style which caused frequent breakage of parts ) to show off the truck's capabilities as well as to promote his shop.

In 1979, Chandler replaced the under assembly of the truck with one from a military-surplus top loader featuring four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering that used 48-inch tires. The shop moved to Hazelwood, Missouri, in 1984, which remained as Bigfoot's headquarters until 2015 when the headquarters was relocated to Pacific, Missouri. To remedy this problem, Chandler and his wife Marilyn, along with friend Jim Kramer, opened a shop called Midwest Four Wheel Drive and Performance Center in Ferguson, Missouri.

Louis area, Chandler began racing in 1975, using the Chandler family's 1974 Ford F-250 four-wheel drive pickup truck and found that automotive shops in the Midwest generally did not carry the parts needed to repair the frequent damage. A former construction worker and off-roading enthusiast from the St.

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