RealRides Volume 12: Peter Corn

At RealTruck, we offer truck and SUV owners more than just upgrades; we offer expression for you and your rig. We’re enthusiasts who live this lifestyle long after the workday ends. We don’t just write about this stuff and sell the parts. We drive them, we put our kids in them, road trip them, off-road them, and everything in between.

While many of us have varied experience with 4x4s before joining the RealTruck team, we all find our way to big 4x4s eventually. However, I’m from Alabama, and trucks have been a constant for my entire life. 

I’m an automotive writer for RealTruck/RealSource. I’ve spent over eight years click-clacking on this keyboard, using all the best words I know to inform, entertain, and educate people on cars, trucks, and motorcycles. After my family and I moved back to Alabama following 12 years in NYC, I bought (foolishly) a pretty clapped-out 2011 GMC Yukon XL. We went as big as we could for the Corn family mobile command center, and we’ve loved it despite endless troubles and hidden rust. C'est la vie.

Where most automotive publications feature readers’ builds, RealRides turns the camera on those of us bathed in the ghoulish blue glow of RealTruck. These self-produced stories of our trucks highlight the people behind the website. This monthly RealSource feature showcases my family’s lifted 4x4, land ship that got hooked up with some of RealTruck’s most popular parts.

We want to show readers and customers that our parts aren’t pictures in a catalog; these truck parts are products we use and trust to keep our families safe, our trucks shiny side up, and unique to us.

I grew up sitting on oil stains as a baby in our garage, watching my dad work on his 1970 MGB GT, listening to The Beatles tapes on our garage 8-track player. It’s not exactly a very trucky environment. 

By the time I was 16, I was in love with old cars. I didn’t care where they were from, how much power they had, or nearly anything else only that they were old and had motors. Naturally, when it came time to buy my first car, I went with a 1958 Ford Fairlane Galaxy 500. My wife still has a scar on her leg from our first date when her ankle kissed the lake pipe running under the door. 

Since those foundational days, I moved to NYC and worked as a songwriter. Somehow, I’m still not quite sure, those tunes slowly turned from bar noise to editorial musings. 

It started early in the garage with my dad. But past that, I was raised in suburban Alabama. Once my pals and I graduated from skateboard-only transportation, we were off. The car was our first chance at real freedom. Real speed. Real adventure. We ramped 'em, raced 'em, wrecked 'em, and most importantly, loved 'em. 

I started writing for RealTruck while still in the truck wasteland of Manhattan. It was a gig that kept me tethered to the automotive world when chances to write were rarer than hen’s teeth. 

That said, the moment we moved back to Alabama (a little over a year ago), as fast as I could, I bought the biggest 4x4 SUV I could find to haul our kids, pets, trailers, and all manner of assorted junk. 

And, boy, did we. We put 15,000 road trip miles on the Yukon XL in one year.

Working as a writer for RealTruck allows me to pour my professional time and skills into a hobby and culture with real-world utility. It’s a deeply practical and justifiable way to get new parts for the truck. 

I’m a contributing writer for RealTruck. I create enthusiast-focused content for folks who love trucks. Owning a truck now deepens that perspective. I don’t just write about lift kits, running boards, and towing. They are a part of my family’s daily life. 

RealTruck aligns with me because I love buying and shopping for truck parts almost as much as I love driving them. This may be silly and materialistic, but adding something to the family bus feels good every time. 

Plenty of folks come to RealTruck to build SEM monsters, dune jumpers, Mall Crawlers, and “Brodozers.” I’m here for all of that, but for me, RealTruck represents an expansive selection of parts for a wide range of trucks for virtually any purpose.

RealTruck represents the intersection I care about most: daily utility, fun, and driving something that makes you proud. The ability to tailor a vehicle to your specific lifestyle is what it’s all about.

This thing is a beast. It needs every cubic inch of its 5.3-liter V8 to move this colossus down the road with any sort of grunt, but it does it. While I found a few surprises along the way with this truck, the expanse of it fits our lifestyle in a way nothing ever really has.

We road trip constantly. We buy and sell antiques. We hike, camp, fish, kayak, and fill it up with groceries, Barbie Dream houses, and stuffed animals. Admittedly, the 4x4 function isn’t all that useful in such a big boy, but it still has its moments of heroism when we visit family in the mountains of Western North Carolina. 

One of my favorite parts of the rig is the RealTruck roof rack. I got the biggest one we make, and I’ll strap any damn thing up there. Even with a car full of family, I can still haul furniture, building materials, kayaks, bikes…whatever. 

After nearly a decade of writing about vehicles, this truck represents something different for me. It’s not fast, it’s not overly cool, and it’s not a performance anything; it’s a big truck that does truck things. 

The focus so far has been protection and practicality.

Exterior

• Go Rhino 3000-Series Black Grille Guard

• 68” RealTruck Go Rhino SRM400 Roof Rack

• Husky Liners MudDog Mud Flaps

Interior

• Husky Liners X-act Contour Floor Liners

• DVD Player and Bluetooth Stereo

Lighting

• RealTruck Go Rhino Xplor Blackout Series 3x3 Cube Lights

There’s so much left to do on this big oaf.

• Toyo Open Country Tires

• Struts

• Brakes

• Headlights

At this point, the only things I want to do are replace old stock parts with newer performance parts. 

I've spent my whole young life making fun of people driving giant SUVs. Now I’m one of them, and I love it. I never thought I would care to have a giant off-road rig until I had kids. There’s something really comforting about mashing around in a mobile command center with your favorite people on Earth. For those of us who have more people we wanna carry with us, the big boys are the only way to go.