RealRides Volume 15: Sam Hummel

Most automotive retailers and magazines have a readers' rides section—a place to showcase customer builds and the creativity behind them. At RealTruck, we do things a little differently. Instead of turning the spotlight outward, we shine it inward on the people behind the brand. The employees answering your calls, processing your orders, and keeping the wheels turning aren't just RealTruck people by trade—they're real-truck people by nature.​

Welcome to RealRides, where we pull back the curtain on the builds, restorations, and passion projects owned by the RealTruck team. This month, we're featuring Sam Hummel—Senior EHS Specialist at TruXedo®—and the owner of two very different machines with very different stories behind them.

RealRides is RealTruck's answer to the traditional readers' rides format—with one key difference. Instead of featuring customer vehicles, we're spotlighting the trucks, Jeeps, and SUVs owned by our own staff. Each installment includes a brief interview, a look at the featured employee's build or builds, and the story of how they got there.​

We created this series for a simple reason—to show that RealTruck isn't just another retailer moving product. The people keeping the operation running are the same people spending their weekends wrenching, restoring, and planning the next modification. When you buy from RealTruck, you're buying from enthusiasts—and RealRides is our way of proving it.

Sam Hummel is a Senior EHS Specialist at TruXedo, one of RealTruck's family of brands, based in Yankton, South Dakota. He's been with RealTruck for nearly two years, but his path into the industry was shaped long before that—by a career in health and safety, a lifelong passion for cars and motorcycles, and a knack for finding interesting vehicles under unusual circumstances.​

Outside of work, Sam's time is divided pretty evenly between the garage and the sidelines. "My hobbies are mostly centered around cars or motorcycles," he says. "I have been fortunate to own quite a few different rides over the years and participate in a wide array of vehicle events. If I'm not spending time on a car or motorcycle, I am likely shuttling my daughter to or from sporting events or play practice."​

Ask Sam what he'd drive for a week if he could pick anything, and you get a window into how his mind works. "I would like to experience a Group B rally car like a Ford RS200 or Audi Quattro," he says. "Group B rally cars really got the automotive companies innovating, and with nearly unrestricted modifications, they're basically a supercar built for dirt."

For Sam, the appeal of working in the truck accessories industry connects directly to what draws him to his day job in EHS. "As a member of the EHS team, my job is to help people—I can't think of anything more rewarding than that."​

That desire to show up for people runs through Sam's story in ways that go beyond the job description—something the story of his CJ-5 makes immediately apparent.​

Sam realized the immense scale of RealTruck early in his career. "Walking into the Dallas RDC for the first time and seeing the magnitude of our brand was mind-boggling, coming from a manufacturing site." For someone who came up in manufacturing, the scope of RealTruck's operation landed differently than it might for someone who grew up in retail—and it stuck with him.

Some vehicles find their owners. Sam's 1979 Jeep CJ-5 is a textbook case.​

The CJ-5 belonged to one of Sam's former employees—a man who had owned it for over 40 years, long enough that the Jeep had become inseparable from his identity. One afternoon, that employee called in sick. Sam checked in around 2:00 p.m., and what he heard on the other end of the line stopped him cold. He recognized the signs of a heart attack, drove to the man's home, and got him to the emergency room—where the team resuscitated him twice. The hospital staff and his family credited Sam's call with saving his life.​

"After over 40 years, the Jeep was truly a piece of his identity," Sam says, "and I am grateful that he wanted me to have it."​

Sam had spent the better part of a decade restoring a Dodge Dart and never imagined himself as a Jeep person. The CJ-5 changed that quickly. "Now that I have the Jeep, it has truly become a family vehicle. We drive it around town, out to the lake, cruise the gravel roads, or whatever adventure may come up."​

The Jeep already carries a lift kit and 33-in. tires from its previous life, and Sam is in the process of freshening it up with parts from Rugged Ridge® and OMIX®—two RealTruck brands with deep roots in Jeep restoration and known for fitting classic CJ applications correctly. On the adventure side, the family takes it to the Black Hills of South Dakota for mild off-roading, and 2026 has bigger ambitions on the horizon—Jeep Branson in Missouri and Moab in October are both on the calendar.​

When Sam wheels, he's rarely alone. His father-in-law runs a 1985 Toyota pickup that they shortened the wheelbase on, lifted, and built into more of a crawler. "Whenever the two of us go out, it's bound to be a blast.”

Before the Jeep found him, Sam spent a decade with a 1971 Dodge Dart—a project that consumed years of weekends and embodied a completely different build philosophy from the CJ-5's. Where the Jeep is a family cruiser built for gravel roads and the occasional trail, the Dart is a ground-up restoration of a classic American muscle car—the kind of project that’s birthed through hundreds of hours of tedious labor, rather than a few bolt-on mods.​

The Dart represents the chapter of Sam's automotive life before the Jeep arrived and changed the direction. Both machines are still in the fleet, and between them they cover the full range of what makes someone a legitimate car person—a classic American restoration project and an off-road icon with a story attached to it that most builds couldn't match.

A huge thank you to Sam for sharing his story—and for the reminder that sometimes the most meaningful things in life show up when you least expect them. A Jeep that spent 40 years with one owner is now carrying a new family down gravel roads in South Dakota, with a second generation already waiting in line for the keys.​

We'll let Sam close it out:​

"I never thought I was going to be a Jeep person—spending the last decade restoring a 1971 Dodge Dart … My daughter has already laid claim to it when she gets old enough to drive—so I am hopeful to give it another 40 years of life in our hands."​

Stay tuned for the next installment of RealRides. In the meantime, check out past features on Lindzy Jackson, Todd Henderson, Mike Holsomback, and Brendan Soriano.