How better to celebrate Woodie Day than with a woodie truck? I shot this just minutes ago, returning from a quick errand; sometimes life cooperates, other times not so. The only thing is, they should have left the stakes natural wood, and varnished them. Shucks!
I’ve always had a thing for compact vans trucks and I rather wish Chrysler had made a mini-pickup version of their mini-van. The bed does take 4×8 sheets between the wheels, has a very low bed height, it’s comfortable, and gets decent mileage. There is that small issue with its automatic, though. For a perspective on its size in comparison to today’s pickups, follow me:
Update: By request, I’m adding a shot of the tailgate, which is apparently held up by two bungee cords! Low-budget engineering.
Put some whitewalls and wire wheel covers on that and you’d have a Caravan Brougham pickup!
What does it look like from the back? Did it have a tailgate?
I just added a picture of that; a “tailgate” of sorts, with two bungee cords to hold it up!
What the Beverly Hillbillies would drive in 2012.
Is this 1958 Biscuter Furgoneta compact enough for you? 116 inches long, 700 lb.
Wow! A Biscuter. Check out microcar museum.com for more fun. Biscuter. Sheesh, you just blew me away. Oh, upon closer inspection, that may be where this pic came from (?).
Very creative, but the OPP here in Ontario would haul that thing off the road in a second.
It makes me think of the Dodge Rampage and the Plymouth Scamp pickups that were made in the early 80s. They were a bit prettier than this custom job. I can’t even remember the last time I saw one of those…
Two queries – weather protection, and structural integrity?
It’s clear from all the pics that there’s no rear bulkhead installed behind the seats. Given that, I’d say: nil.
Which is a pity. I’d like to see this done properly. Convert the sliding door to a ramp, the rear hatch to a proper tailgate, and weld in a bulkhead and it would be a great update on the old-style van-based cabover pickups from the 60s.
I was under no illusion of the quality of this conversion! Add to your list some extensive underbody reinforcement otherwise it will fail even without a load. The Australian Top Gear show had a make-a-ute challenge and one host chopped the top off a minivan, keeping the sliding door intact. On the off-road challenge the door came out of the tracks and fell off, due to body flex.
Yes fundamentally a good concept – perhaps a version on the Ram CV?
A woody ute well someone had to do it.
It pains me to admit how much I would enjoy driving this. I have seen utes made from Caddies, Buicks etc. All home made. There are two upscale communities here north of Houston. Kingwood and the Woodlands. I live between the two and would absolutely revel in the chance to drive this pristine rig around those two towns. Until I was banned I suppose. Offended yuppies would abound.
Those are yuppies in there? I thought it was just uppity rich folk with their non-pedestrian nor bike friendly streets and shopping malls.
When I lived in the woodlands it was yuppies. When Mitchell Development sold the thing I started seeing mansions that were much larger and numerous. I moved out.
Now I live in a trailer on five acres and you can have the custom home I once had. I don’t want it. Whoever lives there (or in Kingwood) they don’t care so much for guys like me who drive old trucks. wear bibbers, and have manure on their boots.
It’s a whole lot happier now and I agree with that guy. Love to take it to valet parking. Stuff like that is better than laughing gas.
+1
It would be wonderful to take that home-brew ute somewhere with valet parking.
Awesome. In every sense of the word. I don’t live in that upscale of a neighborhood, but this would p*ss off the neighbors. Well, actually, I get along with them pretty well. They’d probably be questioning my sanity, though…
I wonder if this Plymouth made it to 2016? I would bet $10 it is dead by now since optimism only can get you so far.