Rock Legend and Hot Rod Icon Billy Gibbons Goes Off-Grid in a ’42 Ford Deluxe
What does it take to play a full set from the trunk of a 1942 Ford Deluxe? For rock legend Billy Gibbons, it took two one-of-a-kind Magnatone tube amps, a Kicker sound system, and a power source that doesn’t need an outlet or a running engine.
Intelligent Controls, alongside Dustin Donaldson, built an independent Victron lithium power system, so the car can park anywhere and play. It stores 2.56kWh in a single Victron lithium battery, delivers about 1kVA of continuous power through two paralleled inverter/chargers, and recharges from the alternator while the car is driven. Utilizing the engine detection feature of the Orion XS 12/12-50ensures that the starting battery is never depleted when playing, as well as the new emergency charge feature of the Orion allows for bi-directional charging if the starting battery would ever need a boost.
Billy Gibbons has spent decades commissioning some of the most famous hot rods and customs ever built. Among them is the legendary Eliminator, a cherry-red 1933 Ford coupe that starred in ZZ Top’s classic 1980s music videos like "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Gimme All Your Lovin.'" Then came CadZZilla, the acclaimed customized 1948 Cadillac completed in 1989. His fascination with fast cars and rock and roll has made him stand out as a prominent name among hot rod enthusiasts.
This one started as a survivor car sitting in his Los Angeles driveway, a 17-foot 1942 Ford Deluxe sedan with brakes so locked up it took some work just to get it out. From there, the car was hauled to Montana’s Big Hole River Valley, home of the Wise River Club, which Gibbons co-owns with musician Tim Montana.
The idea for this build took shape between Billy and Tim, when Kicker wanted a headline car for its SEMA booth, and the two friends saw a chance to fuse together two of their favorite things, fast cars and rock and roll.
Gibbons had one firm request: No ordinary car stereo. He wanted impressive sound inside and two guitar amps in the trunk. Two of the same Magnatones he plays on stage, so Tim could plug in beside him and they could play a real set straight from the car.
From the outside, the Deluxe looks all original. Underneath, it rides on a custom frame and even has a custom radiator. A Gearstar transmission puts the 560+ horsepower 383 stroker engine in motion. It's big and heavy, but it gets up and goes.
The build came together in Montana where Tim's friends, a crew of hot rodders from Butte with several SEMA cars to their name, handled the engine and frame. Kicker sent John Myers, who builds award-winning custom speaker enclosures for the biggest names in high-end hot rods. Working out of a garage in Wise River, he built the custom front kick-panel speakers and a rear center console that has to be seen to be believed.
The whole system started with the guitar amps. Magnatone makes a Billy Gibbons series of amps in Chrome Grape, a purple alligator-skin covering that Magnatone produces just for Billy. The problem: Billy’s amps were too big to fit, even after Dustin Donaldson reconfigured the back of the car.
“The answer came from a friend.” said Dustin. “Slash, the legendary Guns N’ Roses guitarist and a good friend of both Billy and Tim, has a more compact model called the Lil’ Viper. Magnatone custom-built two Lil’ Vipers at the factory in Billy’s Chrome Grape finish. They’re literally one-of-a-kind amps.”
The original goal to power the Magnatone tube amps was simple. Then Aaron Hanson asked, “Why don’t we run the Kicker amps too?” So the Intelligent controls team, (Aaron Hanson, Simon Ytterbom and Dustin Donaldson) started the install with a dedicated energy bank: a Victron 12.8V 200Ah (2.56kWh) lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery.
At 80% depth of discharge, meaning the share of stored energy drawn before recharging, it’s rated for 2,500 cycles before dropping below 80% of its original capacity. You can discharge it to 100%, but limiting it to 80% preserves battery life. Resulting in over a decade of usable life VS the 3-5 year lifespan of a standard battery. A Victron VE.Bus BMS NG watches over the system, coordinating the battery and the inverters so everything shuts down safely if the battery's own protection circuit ever trips.
Getting power where it needs to go safely took several layers of protection. A Class T 125A fuse, seated in a Blue Sea fuse holder, sits between the battery and the rest of the wiring, so a short circuit blows the fuse instead of something more expensive.
Two BEP Pro Installer four-stud bus bars handle distribution, giving the inverters, the DC-DC charger, and the accessories each a clean connection point instead of stacking wires onto a single terminal. Two Blue Sea MEGA fuse holders, ignition-protected so they're rated safe to mount near the engine, protecting those individual circuits. A Blue Sea 6006-BSS m-Series battery switch lets the driver isolate the entire system with one turn, for storage or service.
Getting power out of the battery took two Victron MultiPlus 12/500 120V inverter/chargers wired in parallel. “Normally, a single larger Multi would be used,” said Simon Ytterbom. “But for this application to match the style, and with spacing, dual 12/500 Multis fit just perfectly in the trunk (after some minor cosmetic cutting to the frame of the multi)”. Working together they deliver roughly 860W of continuous power and up to 1,800W in short bursts. That's enough to run the amps and custom sound system, with plenty of power to spare.
To mount them, the team squeezed them into cavities in a small trunk subpanel. Engraved Plexiglas covers with vent holes let the inverters breathe when they warm up. LEDs light up the covers, along with John Myers’ custom control center, housing the Victron Ekrano GX and lighting control.
Keeping the battery topped off is a Victron Orion XS 12/12-50 DC-DC charger, wired to the alternator. It accepts anywhere from 9V to 17V on the input side, so it keeps charging steadily while the engine is running, delivering up to 50A back into the battery as the car drives.
The idea to run the Kicker amps led to smarter controls. If the battery drops below a set percentage, the system automatically shuts off both the Magnatone tube amps and the Kicker stereo amps. The Intelligent Controls team wrote custom screens and menus in the Victron system so that Billy and Tim can pick the shutdown percentage themselves, and toggle the LEDs on and off.
Those controls live on a custom display panel built in Billy Gibbon’s colors and branding, which also shows the battery’s state of charge at a glance.
