What started a few years ago, possibly as a truck lift kit accident, with much criticism, has recently developed into quite a trend. Every now and then, on some of the truck forums or Facebook truck groups, you will find someone posting a pic of a truck or SUV that is leaning in the back, or looks somewhat overloaded. Sure enough, if the group is not a dedicated truck squat or Carolina lean group, the comments will be full of hate and guys ripping the poster asking if his truck is broken, or halfway through a lift install or such.
When asking why a truck is leaning or squatted the answers usually either have some form of hate or sarcasm with one Reddit user (SnuffThePunkz) even stating the reasons for the lean: “It’s great for star gazing, drive-in movies, or just not needing to make eye contact with the pedestrian as you run them over. Purpose built and all.”. Classic. You have got to laugh at the ingenuity of peoples’ sarcasm sometimes.
Some claim it started as a means to emulate the Californian desert racing trucks that have hanging rear ends because of the super-long-travel suspension installed there to adsorb jumps at speed, other just claim it to have started with wannabe gangster-kids in the Carolina area. Whoever started it, there is no denying the following it has gathered when looking at the numbers of followers of truck lean / squat dedicated Instagram pages. Mostly called truck squat, truck lean, squatted truck, the Carolina squat, or Carolina lean or even the laid back look, it is mostly encountered in the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia. It certainly has it’s place in truck modification culture, with certain manufacturers bowing to the market demands and bringing out kits for this purpose. The look is most often found on IFS (independent front suspension) trucks, whereby the front is lifted with either a ball-joint lift or a torsion bars adjustment, with the rear still at standard or in extreme cases even lowered ride height, giving it the truck squat in the back. This look as can be seen on most examples, is not complete or legit, without the accompanying HUGE wheels, with deep dishes and low profile tires stretched onto them.
Certainly not any use for off-roading or overlanding, and probably not a look for everyone, we here at Modifind endorse any culture, style or movement where people customize their rides to match their personalities or lives, and we sure as hell like it more than stock trucks, as life is way too short to drive stock. Let’s face it, even the guys hating on Carolina lean the look, if you also grew up in those schools, with those guys as your friends, then you would also probably be driving a truck with that look right now.