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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Chaosmusic on 2024-07-05 03:01:28+00:00.
Truck Nuts are the stupid plastic testicles you see on the back of trucks and other vehicles. I knew they existed but did not know their history until listening to an episode of The Dollop podcast dedicated to it, and it is quite the ride.
John Saller was riding 4x4s with some friends in the late 1980s and saw someone riding one with a pair of testicles hanging from the back. Another version of the story is he heard someone yelling "Ernie, show 'em you got balls!" which he claims gave him the inspiration to make this into a business. Upon inquiring, he heard about woman in Arizona making human sized fake testicles. He wanted to make bull sized testicles to hang off the back of pickup trucks to really make them stand out. He used CAD software to make a design and approached a plastic injection company in SoCal owned by Chad Tombyll. John was apparently embarrassed to describe exactly what he wanted. It took Chad an hour and a half of listening to John before he realized he was talking about making giant plastic balls. They go into business together and John named the company Bulls Balls with the slogan "Made To Swing".
Meanwhile, David Ham in New Mexico saw a custom made pair in a desert rally and wanted to make them himself as a business. He was not as lucky as John, the first 9 plastic injection companies refused to make them for him, but the 10th finally agreed. David started his company, Your Nutz, 2 years after Bulls Balls.
Despite John launching first, both men claimed to have invented the idea. Just to clarify, both men who say they have invented Truck Nuts did so after seeing someone else with them.
Truck Nuts start off as a niche product, but in the late 90s, the internet takes off and both companies launched websites. Thanks to people posting pictures of their vehicles with Truck Nuts, sales for both companies explode. Some dealerships even started offering them as optional accessories at purchase. They ranged in size from 4.5 to 10 inches in length and came in multiple colors including pink or chrome, ones covered in flames and, of course, American flags.
Both websites say that they were the inventor of Truck Nuts and both men are incensed that the other makes that claim. Neither could provide definitive proof. Their rivalry increases and both men claimed the other had called to harass them as well as also exchanging angry emails. However, when interviewed for an article by Vice, Ham refused to provide any of the emails. I will be referring to the Vice article and include a link below.
Truck Nuts become so popular that theft becomes a problem with owners reporting that the nuts get regularly stolen off their trucks. Bulls Balls made 2nd Generation Trucks Nuts with a chain and lock to prevent theft.
As the popularity of Truck Nuts grows, some government officials start to take notice. Maryland State Senator LeRoy E. Myers said they were vulgar and immoral. In 2007, Myers made a proposal to "prohibit motorists from displaying anything resembling or depicting 'anatomically correct' or 'less than completely and opaquely covered' human or animal genitals, human buttocks or female breasts". Other jurisdictions followed but few succeeded. Senator Jim King of Jacksonville complained about the attempted legislation, saying he had a set on one of his vehicles, which he described as “all pimped out.” They are no more than “an expression of truckliness”. He later admitted he removed them from his truck after insistence from his wife, so we know who has the balls in that household.
As an interesting side note, during my research I saw that Myers had been accused and charged of sexual harassment.
According to the Dollop episode, so many states tried to ban Truck Nuts that the ACLU stepped in, saying Truck Nuts represent an idea and are thus protected speech by the 1st Amendment. I was not able to find any article or information to corroborate that. Some jurisdictions did include Truck Nuts under certain anti-obscenity laws which included fines, more on that later.
Ham was upset by these attempts to ban Truck Nuts thinking it would hurt business while Saller was more amused and thought the attempts only created free publicity and drove sales.
In 2009, Ham created a new website called allthenutz.com with the intent of it being a centralized warehouse to sell all Truck Nuts and related accessories, including the Bulls Balls from his competitor, Saller. Ham claimed he placed a wholesale order for Bulls Balls from Saller but did not receive them nor did he receive a refund. Saller claimed they realized what Ham was doing and cancelled the order and did provide a refund. Not sure how that resolved, if it did. However, somehow Ham did get some Bulls Balls and started selling them on his website without Saller's permission.
This led to a post on the Bulls Balls website called "Truck Nuts – A Quest for the Truth", questioning Ham and his brother Kenneth's business ethics and the quality of the nuts they sold. It includes price and size comparisons and a series of blog posts detailing some of the shenanigans that they claim Ham and All The Nutz got up to. (link below)
Now we get to the most bizarre escalation of the story. Upset about the post, Ham drives from New Mexico to California to the plastic injection company that makes Bulls Balls, Tombyll Plastic. Owner Chad Tombyll (the person that John Saller took 90 minutes to explain the idea of fake plastic testicles) met with a man calling himself Bozzy Willis who wanted to place an order for Bulls Balls. Unfortunately for "Bozzy", Chad recognized him as David Ham and had him escorted from the building. When he learned of this, another post appeared on the Bulls Balls website making fun of David "Bozzy Willis" Ham.
Immediately after this episode, a slew of negative reviews for Bulls Balls started popping up online, including a Facebook user, interestingly going by the name Bozzy Willis, who continued to post on the Bulls Balls Facebook page until 2013. Accusations included price fixing and deceitful business practices. Even Bulls Balls web host, John Beaman, was attacked in these reviews. When the Vice reporter asked Ham about these posts, he replied, "That is Saller's vile lies again." Additionally, blogs started popping up also bad mouthing Bulls Balls and promoting Your Nutz and All The Nutz. Many of the posts were copied and pasted from blog to blog. Strangely, when the reporter asked Ham about the blog posts, he responded, "I'm sure I wrote several of them."
The online war came to a head on Ripoff Report, a consumer reporting website for people to report on companies that they think are fraudulent. Running from Jan to Sep 2009, it started with a complaint against Bulls Balls from someone claiming to have ordered from the website and not receiving their order. The complaint also bizarrely mentions that "This guy has a felon conviction for assult with a deadly weapon, he doesn't return calls." The complaint is anonymous but mentions their location as New Mexico, which coincidentally is where Ham is from.
What follows is a 17,000 word back and forth over several posts between individuals, sometimes anonymous, sometimes admitting that they are Ham and Saller, sometimes not (I did not read the entire exchange, I am going by the Vice article but will include a link to it). Accusations of lying, shady business practices, threats, harassment, and even posting of maybe real, maybe not Cease and Desist letters. This by two (three if you believe that David Ham enlisted his brother Ken) old men who barely know how to use the internet. For example, some of the posts, claiming to be consumers will suddenly mention that they were John or David.
According to Chad, the stress of dealing with all of the negative online press took it's toll on John where it was consuming more of his time than the actual running of the business, including dealing with lawyers. The breaking point seemed to be a post on one of the boards that John and David had been bickering on by a potential customer who was sickened by the arguing and that neither company deserved his business. He saw Truck Nuts on a truck and was excited to Google them to find more about the company that makes them and "I find all this crap. Both companies should be ashamed of yourselves. Hang that on your truck!" The post was signed No Longer A Truck Nut Buyer. John replied saying he completely agreed. He made one final post on the Ripoff Report thread and then ceased responding to attack posts online. With John not responding, David Ham slows down the online attacks.
In 2011, a woman in South Carolina was given a ticket by Bonneau Chief of Police Franco Fuda for having Truck Nuts, citing the state's obscene bumper sticker law. She received a $445 ticket, but Chief Fuda also insisted on a trial, wanting the case to send a message against what he perceived to be public obscenity. After three failed attempts due to having too small of a jury pool, no trial date was set. It is not known if the defendant, Virginia Tice, 65, paid the $445 fine.
Aftermath
After the Ripoff Report exchange, both companies went back to neutral corners and just existed for awhile without major incidents. Bulls Balls webhost John Beaman passed away and some time around 2013, Saller sold the company to Chad Tombyll, citing bad health. Saller passed away in 2014. Ham responded with his usual class: "I read that both his ...
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