Nine Inches, Forty-Inch Boots: The North QLD Silverado HD

Every Tough Trucks build has a home base, and this one's is Mackay — a long way from the polished showroom floors these trucks roll off in the US, and exactly the kind of place a truck like this actually gets used. Built out of the North QLD workshop, this 2025 Silverado HD isn't dressed up for a car park. It's set up to clear whatever North Queensland throws under it, and to do that legally on Australian roads, which is a harder brief than it sounds.

Nine Inches, No Compromised Geometry

The lift is McGaughy's 7"–9" kit for the 2020–2025+ Silverado/Sierra HD platform, cranked to the full 9 inches up front. The number gets the attention, but the engineering underneath it is the actual story: a true drop crossmember paired with a taller knuckle keeps the factory steering and CV axle angles where GM intended them, rather than fighting bump steer and driveline vibration the way a cheap block-and-spacer lift would. McGaughy's own compression struts and A-arm support rods triangulate the dropped front crossmembers back to the transmission crossmember, and a 3/16-inch skid plate sits over the differential for exactly the kind of impact this truck is built to take. Getting from the kit's stock 7 inches to a full 9 up front means adding McGaughy's torsion keys and upper control arms — the difference between a truck that looks lifted and one that's actually been engineered to run that tall.

Forty Inches of Self-Cleaning Mud Terrain

That lift and a set of Fuel wheels are what make room for the Maxxis Razr MT in a 40-inch fitment — well beyond what the kit's base spec allows for, and a genuine statement about how much this truck has been built around the tyre rather than the tyre being an afterthought. The Razr MT's tread is built to matter off the showroom floor too: deeply sculptured centre blocks for mud traction, razor-stone and mud ejectors to keep the tread self-cleaning instead of packing up solid, and a 3-ply polyester sidewall with dual-core body-ply construction for the puncture and tear resistance a tyre this size needs when it's actually working. It's a mud-terrain built to still behave like a road tyre between the rough stuff — which matters on a truck that has to cover blacktop to get to the tracks worth running.

Making It Legal, Not Just Loud

The part that doesn't show up in a photo is often the part that takes the most work, and that's true here. Getting a US-spec truck's lighting to actually comply with Australian Design Rules means going through the factory light logic — sequencing, flash rates, what's allowed to face forward — and reconnecting it properly rather than just disabling half of it. It's tedious, unglamorous work, and it's also the difference between a truck that's genuinely road legal and one that just looks the part until someone checks. Behind the grille sits a hidden lightbar — tucked out of sight in daylight, doing real work after dark.

This is what a North QLD build looks like when it's done properly: real lift geometry, tyres sized to match it, and the compliance work nobody sees but every inspector checks. Got questions about any of it — drop them below.