The Japanese pickup manufacturers have been building crew cab compact trucks for over over thirty years, but saw fit to withhold them from the US market until much more recently, with the 1995 Tacoma in the case of Toyota. That didn’t stop the owner of this N50 series Toyota long wheelbase heavy duty truck from making his own, thanks to a rear cab unit from a Nissan Frontier.
Sergio is a tile contractor, and he knew exactly what he wanted in the ideal truck for his work. He found the basis in a long-wheelbase one-tonner, as used by U-Haul and RV makers.
It has the heavy duty dual wheel rear axle, and the very durable 3VZ-E SOHC 3.0 Liter V6, which has 0ver 341k miles on it. Then he took some welding and body work classes at our local community college, found himself the rear cab portion from a Nissan Frontera, and went to work. That was not as easy as expected, as the Nissan cab was a couple inches wider than the Toyota. It had to be narrowed to fit, and it does quite well.
It’s not totally obvious from this picture, but he finished off the interior in a very professional way, blending in the roof liner and interior trim. He configured the rear compartment to haul tools, but the platform can be readily removed and the seat reinstalled for passenger hauling. And then of course a nice little dump bed in the back. Let’s just say I was impressed enough to get Sergio’s business card, and if I ever need a tile contractor, he’s getting a call from me. This guy does nice work.
Wow- I’m impressed.
Sergio has artistic skills that extend far beyond tile setting. I can’t believe a truck could turn out this well finished and refined after a single welding class. Sergio must have had a vision in his head, and merely learned welding to gather the tools needed to complete the truck he carried in his mind.
Having said that, the body lines match up even worse than the lines on those old Studebaker pickups that mounted beds from another manufacturer. But damn, is the body work nice!
Dave beat me to the Stude Champ reference. But the workmanship appears first rate. My hat is off to Sergio.
This is impressive! When I started reading, I thought the direction of the story was that this was a bizarre factory job done on a rush basis to fill a product hole. The details that had to be worked through would have to take the patience of a Saint.
That is a nice conversion and to do it all by oneself is stellar. I remember in the 1980’s there was some conversion company that was adding crew and extended cabs to Toyota pickups(aka HiLux)
Here is a pic of one
An impressive fabrication achievement.
I can’t say the aesthetic qualities are there, but damn that man can do good work. I’d hire him!
Seriously, he merged the two cabs together, and made it look damn near factory, he’s a guy I’d want to have do a tile job.
I totally admire anyone with the skills to do something like this. Even though it isn’t the prettiest result, I like that the windows line up, and overall it appears very well made. Finishing off the interior properly is the sign of a true craftsman. As with the other comments above, based on his workmanship he’d be someone I’d hire!
Using a Toyota door to donate some structure & the skin might have gotten it a bit closer, but then you’d have the pillar behind to deal with – I think I’d call it close enough too!
Once upon a time I did pick-up work at a local body shop in exchange for shop time on my own projects. The owner, an El Salvadorean expat, invited his cousin (an amazing paint man) to work for him after “visiting home”. A month later, the cousin shows up, having driven his 1986 Toyota Hilux 2wd diesel quad-cab all the way from the outskirts of San Salvador. The two-tone beige truck sat in the shop compound for a few months while the cousin decided what to do with it, looking for all the world like a middle-eastern “Technical” lacking only a bed-mounted gun. I told him that I would love to take it off his hands if he didn’t want it anymore. In the end, he restored it to like-new condition, something I am sure has happened to few Toyota pickups of that vintage.
As an aside, the main reason Japanese quad-cabs never made it over here (apart from the Chicken Tax) was that their fuel tanks were invariably mounted in the cab under the rear seat, as opposed to the under-bed mounted gas tanks we’re used to. It was argued that having the tank in the cab presented a safety issue.
Wow, while the front and rear don’t quite match (being that the front is a Toyota, the rear from an Nissan), it works here despite its differences, as he did an excellent job marrying the two together.
That is a hallmark of a good craftsman, being able to marry two disparate objects together in such a way that they seem to “go together”.
Plus, I liked how he finished off the interior and chose that light green paint for the exterior, as it works quite nicely with this rig, distinctive and yet without being garish or anything like that.
Most impressive.especially narrowing the Frontier cab.and it fills his needs.