The first monster truck, Bigfoot, was created in 1975.
Bob Chandler began modifying his family’s 1974 Ford F-250 pickup in 1975. Chandler was an off-road enthusiast and racer near St. Louis, Missouri, and the truck originally served as a heavily modified vehicle for truck pulls, mud runs, and promotional appearances for his four-wheel-drive shop.
Bigfoot became substantially more extreme by 1979, when Chandler replaced its under-assembly with military-surplus components, added four-wheel steering, and fitted it with 48-inch tires. Those changes helped establish the tall, oversized form that audiences now associate with monster trucks.
The truck’s first paid public appearance took place in Denver in 1979. Bigfoot is also credited with the first monster-truck car crush in 1981, while its first car-crushing performance in front of an audience followed in 1982. A common mix-up is treating 1979 as the creation date; that was the year Bigfoot received major upgrades and began public appearances, not the year Chandler started building it.