Marshall Motoarts Sand Car

Playing in the sand with your truck can be a lot of fun, but it also carries with it quite a few risks. Primarily, jumping dunes and dodging pits can put a lot of strain on your vehicle, especially since stock pickups were never designed to take that kind of pounding abuse on their suspension and frame. This is why so many off-road enthusiasts opt for smaller scale entertainment in the form of a utility-terrain vehicle.

Some of the more interesting UTV options on the market come from the mind of Christopher “MARSHALL” Burke of Marshall Motoart. Located in Ogden, Utah, Burke has been building UTV’s for years. UTV’s are vehicles which started out in life as standard work or task-based vehicles but which evolved through customization to fill a sportier role in their owner’s life. UTV’s typically allow for side-by-side seating, unlike a smaller ATV, and they are also larger and more capable than their entry-level cousins.

The Marshall Motoart Sand Car in its natural element.

In addition to basing UTV designs on existing models, Burke also comes up with completely custom creations for individual customers. One of the wildest designs to emerge from the Marshall Motoart studios is the Sand Car. This stretched-wheelbase UTV is powered by an 1,110 horsepower LS7 V8 motor and rides on 35-inch tires. The front rubber is smooth and narrow while the rear tires offer the paddle wheel-style design necessary to plant that much output down in the sand. The Sand Car is heavy – 3,000 lbs – but it features 22 inches of suspension travel up front and 24 inches in the rear to help cushion the blow of landing all of that mass down on the turf.

Huge shocks and an exposed engine highlight the rear of the Sand Car.

Style is not neglected - the Sand Car's revised front end adds an even more aggressive touch to the overall package.

Serious attention has been paid to the exterior look of the Sand Car as well. The vehicle features Pilkington powder coating, a menacing front snarl and an enormous off-road lighting rack to help illuminate the path forward when slicing through dunes after dark.

The Sand Car is a ride that even Mad Max would be jealous of.

There’s no question that the quality of work that goes into a toy like the Marshall Motoart Sand Car is top notch. Unlike other custom vehicles that dot the show car circuit, the Sand Car doesn’t ride from point A to point B in a climate-controlled trailer – it bounces up and down at triple-digit speeds across some of the roughest terrain imaginable, which makes it impossible to hide any design shortcuts or sloppy welds. Even just pinning the accelerator to the floor is enough to shake your fillings out of your teeth, thanks to the Sand Car’s excessive power delivery. If you can afford it, and if your internal organs can take the pounding, it’s hard to top the Marshall Motoart Sand Car when it comes to bringing your dune buggy racing fantasies to life.