KC HiLiTES Expands Trail Visibility on Two Show Trucks
August 7, 2026
A Ram 2500 and a Ford Super Duty, two different KC HiLiTES setups, and the terrain each one was built to handle.
Factory headlights are designed for pavement, where marked lanes define the route and most hazards appear directly ahead. Backroads offer fewer certainties, especially on a rutted climb in four-low. A washout can wait at the trail’s edge, beyond the strongest part of the factory beam, while the road itself bends out of sight. Before committing a heavy, long truck camper to a line, the driver needs to see not only what lies ahead, but also the corners and terrain on either side.
That need for a wider field of view is why both of our current show trucks carry vehicle-specific lighting from KC HiLiTES, whose yellow-and-black lights have appeared on Baja race trucks and trail rigs for more than fifty years. The Ram 2500 carrying the HS 640 uses SlimLite® 8 bumper lights, while the Bowen Customs Ford Super Duty carrying the 800 Flatbed uses a Gravity® Titan® bumper bar. Both trucks pair their forward lighting with FLEX ERA® 4 ditch lights aimed toward corners and terrain beyond the main beam.
Disclosure: Just to be transparent, KC HiLiTES provided both lighting packages as part of a partnership with Alaskan Campers, and didn’t pay for or direct this article. Partnering with a brand whose lights have been on Baja trucks and trail rigs for fifty years isn’t something we take for granted, and we’re proud to have their lighting on a couple of show trucks.
Why KC HiLiTES
KC HiLiTES traces back to a single missed turn. In 1970, Pete Brown was driving at night near Parker, Arizona, and nearly ran past a turn he needed — the 55-watt halogen lights on the market at the time weren’t cutting it in the desert. Working out of his garage in Saugus, California, he adapted a pair of aircraft landing lights into a sturdier steel housing built to survive what a halogen bulb couldn’t. That light became the Daylighter®, and it’s still in KC’s lineup today, more or less unchanged in shape. The company name came from the initials of Pete and his wife, Carol, who built the business with him.
Word got around fast. Friends and other off-roaders wanted the same setup, demand outgrew the garage, and by 1974 KC had moved its operation to Williams, Arizona, where it’s based today. Off-road racers noticed too — pioneers like Walker Evans and Ivan Stewart ran KC lights through the Baja 1000 and other desert races in the 1970s and ’80s, and that racing pedigree is a big part of why the round KC housing, with its black-and-yellow smiley-face cover, is one of the more recognizable pieces of hardware in the off-road world. It’s less a product line than a fixture at this point — camping magazines, race pits, and rock-crawling trailheads have all carried the same yellow logo for half a century.
The underlying problem KC set out to solve hasn’t changed — it’s just built for more terrain than one truck’s dashboard cluster can cover on its own. KC builds its mounts around specific trucks rather than a universal bracket, so the lights integrate with a bumper, hood hinge, or A-pillar location that’s already there instead of needing new holes drilled.
Ram 2500 — SlimLite® 8″ Bumper Bar
The Ram’s bumper bracket is a low-profile, powder-coated steel bar built for 2019-and-newer 2500, 3500, and Power Wagon trucks. It bolts to factory mounting points, no drilling required, and is built with four tabs to carry KC’s SlimLite® 8″ LED lights.
The current SlimLite 8″ is rated at 13,302 lumens per light, an 8-inch round housing at a slim 2.7-inch depth. The Ram runs four of them across its bumper, filling out all four tabs on the bracket. It runs two power modes: full output off-road, and a dimmed setting that cuts brightness to about 20 percent for street driving or group travel. Clear SAE-compliant shields ship with the kit, so the same lights that illuminate a dark forest road can also be “street-legal” on the highway between trailheads, depending on the state and installation. Please don’t cite us in traffic court. A sealed MoistureBlock® connector helps keep water out of the electrical connection.
Ford Super Duty — Gravity® Titan® Bumper Bar
The Super Duty’s bumper mount uses the factory tow-hook location, a bolt-on install that requires only minor trimming of the OEM plastic tow-hook covers. It carries a 45-inch, 7-light Gravity® Titan® LED bar rated at 20,804 total lumens.
The Titan is KC’s step up from its long-running Pro6 line: three LEDs per optic instead of one, a larger illumination zone, more beam distance, and a built-in amber “dust light” mode that acts as a marker for other drivers in low-visibility conditions like dust or snow. A pass-through cooling design is meant to keep the bar at full output on long climbs instead of throttling back to protect itself.
Ditch Lights on Both Trucks: FLEX ERA® 4
Both trucks use KC FLEX ERA® 4 pods at the A-pillars, positioned higher and wider than the bumper lights to illuminate curves and terrain beyond the forward beam. Each five-inch pod is IP68-rated and features an amber backlight, with interchangeable combo and spot lenses included. Vehicle-specific brackets install without drilling, though the Ram mounts may contact the surrounding plastic trim. This wider coverage is particularly useful on winding trails like those encountered near the Hoh River.
Putting KC HiLiTES to Work Across the Pacific Northwest
Both KC-equipped trucks joined our seven-day trip with the HS 640 and 800 Flatbed, with Colten Stephens driving the Ram and Christina Luppi driving the Bowen Customs Ford. The route crossed deep sand, salt spray, rain, mud, water crossings, tight forest trails, and a badly rutted climb that both trucks completed twice in four-low.
The week gave Christina and Colten firsthand experience with the changing conditions these lighting systems are designed to address. When a long travel day ends on a winding trail or unfamiliar campsite approach, the bumper lights illuminate the route ahead while the outward-aimed FE4s help reveal bends and trail edges beyond the main beam.
Two Legacies Built Beyond the Pavement
KC’s approach to truck lighting mirrors how Alaskan Campers builds a camper: work with the vehicle, use existing mounting points, and add capability without unnecessary complexity. Alaskan Campers began in 1958, and KC followed twelve years later. Both grew from a problem encountered on the road and a solution that did not yet exist.
That practical thinking continues in these two builds. The Ram and Super Duty call for different lights and mounting hardware, but each package is shaped around the truck beneath the camper. More than half a century later, campers built for the wild ride on trucks equipped to light the road ahead.
