BIGFOOT #20, the World’s First Electric Monster Truck
“BIGFOOT”® #20 holds a unique place in motorsports history as the world’s first electric monster truck. Built on a custom Bob Chandler chassis with a fiberglass pickup body, the truck runs on a custom electric motor designed by Dennis Berube for high horsepower and high RPM performance.
Power comes from 30 Odyssey PC1200 batteries arranged in three banks of ten, delivering 360 volts of propulsion. Six additional batteries handle brakes and steering. Each of the 36 batteries weighs 38 pounds and delivers 1,200 five-second pulse hot cranking amps. The truck also features on-board battery chargers and a variable-speed programmable controller. Total weight comes in at approximately 11,000 pounds, rolling on standard Firestone 66-inch monster truck tires.
BIGFOOT 20 made its public debut at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas on October 30, 2012, and crushed cars for the first time shortly after in the parking lot of the team’s former Hazelwood, Missouri facility. The truck is particularly well suited for events serving people with special needs or hearing challenges, as it operates nearly silently compared to conventional monster trucks. It continues to appear at select special events across the United States. In the video below, highlights of BIGFOOT #20 doing the first ever electric monster truck car crush in 2012 are shown.
The History of BIGFOOT: The Original Monster Truck
The BIGFOOT story begins with Bob Chandler, a St. Louis area carpenter and construction manager who in 1974 bought a Ford F-250 to support his love of camping and off-roading. Frustrated by the lack of 4×4 parts and services in the area, he and his wife Marilyn partnered with friend Jim Kramer to open Midwest Four Wheel Drive in 1975.
As Chandler pushed his truck harder at off-road events, it grew bigger and more modified. A shop employee nicknamed him “Bigfoot” for his heavy right foot driving style, and the name transferred to the truck itself.
The watershed moment came in 1981 when Chandler, on a whim in an empty Missouri cornfield with one camera rolling, drove BIGFOOT over a pair of junk cars. That impromptu stunt invented what monster trucks are now famous for. A promoter soon convinced him to replicate it in front of a live audience, and the monster truck industry was born.
Ford became BIGFOOT’s first major sponsor in 1983, a partnership lasting nearly 25 years. Through the 1980s the team kept innovating, including building BIGFOOT #5, certified by Guinness as the tallest and widest pickup truck in the world, riding 10-foot-tall tires found in a Seattle junkyard.
By 1989 Chandler used AutoCAD to design a new tubular steel chassis with a patented cantilever suspension, setting the template that virtually the entire industry still follows today.
Chandler also helped co-found the Monster Truck Racing Association in 1987 and spearheaded development of the Remote Ignition Interrupter, a safety device that allows a truck’s engine to be shut off remotely if a driver loses control.
Team “BIGFOOT”® has amassed 50 championships, visited 34 countries, appeared in films including Ready Player One, and in 2012 completed BIGFOOT #20, the world’s first battery-powered monster truck. In 2025 the team celebrated its 50th anniversary, with no signs of slowing down.
