I love going to Home Depot, often to wander the aisles and find stuff to help me solve a problem I didn’t realize my house currently has but might one day, and other times to be stopped dead right in the parking lot knowing that I won’t find anything more interesting inside the store. I initially thought someone was doing something interesting to a Subaru Baja. Then I got closer and realized someone started their project by MAKING a Subaru Baja out of their slightly hail-damaged second generation Outback and then building on from that starting point.
This is another one that will give our Western European readers the heebie-jeebies (nope, no vehicle inspections here, we have the freedom to kill ourselves and others traveling behind us if it all goes horribly wrong and all without having to carry much if any insurance! If you don’t keep your distance it’s your own fault for getting maimed, personal responsibility blah blah blah, this is the home of the free. And the brave!)
I couldn’t tell if the builder was actually assembling this in the parking lot or just came back for more screws or lumber or whatever the next step is, there was lots of sawdust in the back of the car as well as tools, a roll of building wrap, Romex electrical wire etc. He’s in the “Pro” parking area and I think he qualifies. Rainclouds were beckoning, so instead of the method I use where it seems to take me about five trips back and forth to accomplish the simplest of tasks, taking the whole task to the store just might be a better method, after all, everything necessary is under that orange roof and you’d save tons of time. I’ll need to remember that next time.
2×2 lightweight construction, staggered joints, (some) bracing, it’s well on its way! I can see the vision. An exterior skin, insulation, a door, maybe a window or two and some sort of roofing material and it’s all ready to paint a big W on the side and head for the Outback. Or maybe just the Wild. Or the Wal-Mart parking lot across the street where they’ll let you park and live in your camper.
The obvious advantage is that if you wanted to build this on your own property and place it on the ground you’d need to get permits, pay fees, have inspections, and get a whole load of City Hall involved. By slicing your wagon in half with a Sawzall and fastening your lumber to the remaining sheetmetal it gets around all that AND you’re entirely mobile and free to park it on whatever street you want, even right in front of City Hall and The Man Within if that’s your desire. I sincerely hope I see this again at a further stage of completion, at least the Outback seems to run and there’s no shortage of parts and experts around here to keep it alive forever.
Related reading:
That is one crazy photograph. That’s all I can say.
An example of someone smoking a bit too much weed?
2 months a ago I started a part time job at a major chain auto parts store. You would not believe what I have seen roll thru our parking lot. I need to start taking pictures.
I wonder at what speed it will disintegrate.
America’s race to the bottom continues…
Let alone this home-made camper, you’d never see two daily driven early 2000s era Outbacks, a 90s Ranger, and a 90s S-10, in the same photo, where I live. The beauty of CC, is the variety of environments and climates, that allow CCs to survive, and thrive. Ottawa is one of the most affluent cities in Canada. Combined with heavy road salt use, genuine CCs are extremely rare, on a daily basis. Plenty of newer, conforming cars. A CC wasteland, compared to this.
The loss of roof structural integrity is obvious.
Yeah, this will have the structural integrity of a cracked taco shell.
Not if it’s a soft taco 🙂
The framing quality, design and workmanship, is probably better than a lot of seventies RV’s.
Good call on the RV comparison. If this had an Indiana plate on it (it looks like it’s got a Colorado front license plate), I’d venture to guess this was some sort of prototype from an Elkhart manufacturer. This also could have been an effort by one of Eugene’s finest DIYers.
Regardless of the locale, it’s too bad contact wasn’t made with the creator as it surely would be interesting to see how it progresses. As others have pointed out, the engineering seems to be rather…lacking…
But it still would be great to find out the backstory, particularly the reason someone thought that hacking off the back of what might have been an otherwise completely servicable Outback to add a Rube Goldberg slide-in was a good idea. Seems to be someone with a lot more time than actual automotive engineering skill.
Maybe if they’d started with an old Studebaker Wagonaire or GMC Envoy XUV…
Yes, framing integrity looks better than Indiana’s finest new trailers.
Neither the car nor the new structure looks like it will have the needed structural integrity, but for some reason the first thing that hit me was that the rear bumper wasn’t designed to carry a load and that rear brace should have been a few inches forward, atop the ledge of the hatch door opening.
I like it. Years ago you’d see a lot more home made things like this and I always was amazed at peoples ideas and designs. I cut a Mercury Grand Marquis down and put a wooden bed on it. It worked out really well. I used to laugh when people would ask why I didn’t use pressure treated lumber for the bed. “How long do you think this car is going to be running?” was my response.
I knew a guy who took a Grand Marquis and using a Milwaukee Sawzall, cut off the back roof to make a big 4-door pickup truck. It was called the “Marquis de’Sawed”.
I’d like to see that, any pictures? How long did you end up having it?
I’ve got pictures of it packed away. I put a fake Packard hood ornament from JC Whitney on it to complete the look. Just like the featured Subaru, a lot of people saw it and took pictures of it. I could fit a 275 gallon oil tank in it. I drove it for 2 years in cut down mode. I retired it at 210,000 miles. The rust was killing it. The gas tank had several JB Weld patches. One day I noticed the gas tank leaking again. Ten miles later the exhaust fell off. On the way home the brake pedal. Went to the floor. Game over.
“The gas tank had several JB Weld patches.”
That image of multiple fuel tank patches reminded me of a customer car that came into my restoration shop. It was a one-off Bentley S-type with a special body that had a much larger fuel tank for long distance driving, a special custom made gas tank. Problem was, unlike the normal S-type cars with aluminum gas tanks, this one was made of steel.
A prior owner had attempted to solve the problem of multiple pinhole leaks by using wide flathead Philips sheet metal screws. At the base of each screw head was a neoprene O-ring that was a tight fit around the screw thread. Screwed tightly into the pinhole, the O-ring stopped the flow of fuel. These screws had been doing their job for well over 10 years without leaks or seepage. But the tank was finally in need of replacing.
We ended up building a new fuel tank for the car out of aluminum, and I learned a valuable tip. Now my truck’s tool box has a small plastic box with a few sizes of sheet metal screws with wide heads, and an O-ring on each. I’ve used them as a temporary fix on multiple older cars and trucks, and even an old 275 gallon home heating oil tank. One year at the Fall Carlisle event a car was slowly dripping fuel, so I grabbed the kit and screwdriver, told the car’s owner what to do, and within minutes the fuel leak was stopped.
That makes me think of this, from the February 1966 issue of Popular Science “Hints from the Model Garage” section:
Here’s what I did with my freshly restored Rampside, some 40 years ago. Wish I could have kept it…We brought our newborn son home from the hospital in it, but needed more room and more power..and reliability.
Imagine if GM brought out a new, retro-Rampside, only using EV-power.
My fave Corvair pickup mod is this amphibious boat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w1vnGKiiQo
I like how they bring along the kids at the end. “Nah, you don’t need any stinkin’ lifevests, we’ve tested this thing for five minutes, it floats!”
@ Rudiger—at least it wouldn’t leak oil!
Colorado is a great place to find solid old cars. We get out 3 or 4 times a year as 2 of our “kids” (actually in their mid-30s to mid-40s so hardly “kids”) live there. It’s loaded with solid looking vintage trucks in particular. If we lived there I’d be constantly buying projects and consequently broke. We see lots of hail-damaged vehicles when we go to the Applewood King Soopers store, so those storms must be fairly common.
As for this poor Subie, it’s looks like something you’d run across in Nederland in the mountain foothills just W of Boulder, it’s kind of typical of the hippie vibe there.
“We see lots of hail-damaged vehicles when we go to the Applewood King Soopers store, so those storms must be fairly common.”
Applewood has a high concentration of hail damaged cars due to a massive hail storm from five years ago. Insurance companies ended up totaling many 3 to 5 year old cars that had massive cosmetic damage but solid mechanicals. Lots of owners cashed the check, replaced any damaged glass and kept the car.
All these lily-livered worry-warts in the comments. This looks significantly better than some similar ones I’ve seen, and it’s in the fine old American tradition of converting cars to campers. I’ve shown many here over the years, especially old Cadillacs from the ’50s that were once the preferred basis.
The bracing alone strongly suggests that this builder is thinking about what he’s doing; it’s going to be just fine. Since the Subaru is something of a modern VW Beetle, it’s only fitting that it gets used and converted like so many Beetles once did.
Here in the Baltimore-Washington region, housing prices have risen to the point where we are starting to see more and more home-built conversions of wagons and vans into full time living space, because even people with jobs are ending up homeless, and the shelters are full.
Sadly, judging from what appears have started out as a solid Outback, this could very well be the impetus for the Subi-camper. The owner may have been priced-out of a normal, fixed domicile, and this is what he’s come to.
Or maybe not. It’s Colorado and maybe he just wanted a relatively cheap AWD camper. Campers are a hot commodity, and even used ones are expensive. This is a nice size, and it’s got that AWD.
He may have sold his real house over the summer and cashed in, now tiding himself over until prices drop 50% and buy back in…
I saw the guy, he was an older gent, didn’t look “homeless” but working on a car in the Home Depot parking lot wasn’t dressed in a suit and tie either. He had several power woodworking tools in the back of the car, but not a couple of shopping carts worth of other assorted stuff. The guy in the other Subaru Outback was chatting him up when I came back out of the store…
People do all kinds of things with their spare time. Hey, it got me taking four pictures that I wouldn’t have taken if it was a red Camaro with a weekend’s worth of polished chrome! 🙂
Not directly related but lots of homeless, especially the “employable”, want nothing to do with shelters, noise, crime, weird folk, if the option is to have your own secured lockable space that can be moved at a moment’s notice with all of your stuff, that’d probably be my choice as well. An Outback though is plenty large for a person to quite comfortably sleep in the back of, even more so if you have the ability to remove the passenger seat and build a platform, so this is probably more of a hobby type of build rather than destroying the structure of it to add a little house to for absolute necessity’s sake.
In 1982 I opened my restoration shop in a converted 300 ft long barn. To save costs I bought a 1956 Cadillac Ambulance that had been turned into a motor home by CabinCraft of Florida. Stuck historic vehicle plates on it and parked it next to the shop building. It was my home for several years. During the winter I would move it into the building to keep the pipes from freezing. This arrangement allowed me to work on the cars during the day, and the building at night.
This type of framing is pretty common in truck camper construction 2×2 or some times 1×4 construction is common even in commercially made models. I always think it seems under speced as well but once you get plywood inside and sheathing outside they do become fairly strong. I would be more concerned with what he ends up tying the thing down too.
I applaud the genius move of bringing your project to Home Hardware, why isn’t this a thing everywhere?
The overall project, well sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I’d love to see completion photos.
I’ve done some fairly involved car repairs in auto parts store parking lots. The big chain stores seemed to frown on people keeping cars parked in their lots for several days while being worked on, but the independent shops (that are sadly mostly gone now) didn’t seem to mind as long as didn’t park in one of the front spaces close to the store entrance.
la673.
In 1978 a friend of mine from Germany and I were making a 9,000 mile grand tour of north America, when the rear U-joint quickly failed on my Dodge B-200 van, so I pulled into one of those chain auto parts stores in Amarillo, TX. I noticed the sign on the store wall said “No repairs allowed”. I explained that we were traveling and only needed an hour or so to replace the U-Joint, but the manager said no repairs, no exception.
A local customer loudly said “Go a couple of blocks east and there’s a NAPA store on the right, they’ll let you do minor repairs on site, and even let you borrow tools.” He was correct! The NAPA manager even lent me a pair of brand new jack stands and a hydraulic jack to make the job easier. In about 90 minutes we were back on the road.
If I owned an auto shop, I’d definitely let people work on their cars in the parking lot; it increases the chances they’ll stop in to buy another part they realized they needed partway through the job. If they’re working on their car at home and need another part, they may drive to another auto shop (or Walmart, Home Depot etc. if they need common supplies) rather than my store that they’re already at. Some auto parts chain stores may be constrained by the policies of the parking lot land owner, since chain stores seem more often located in shopping centers with shared lots.
One of those now-gone indie shops that let me work on my car on site was College Park Auto Parts, back when I lived around the corner on Hartwick Road. I just recently learned the Zips dry cleaners next door to it was originally built as an Edsel dealership (Bowman Edsel at 7215 Baltimore Ave.). Or at least I think so – it looks very much like a 1950s car dealership, with windows across the front and now-closed-off car bays behind it, but I can’t find any old photos online to confirm it’s the same building. I’d never have guessed I lived a short walk from an Edsel dealer; there are no other car dealers in that area.
It would be smart business. Imagine an auto parts store with signs posted prohibiting parking lot repairs and, worse, a hard-core manager who overzealously enforced it. I don’t think they’d remain in business for very long.
OTOH, some sort of disclaimer should at least be posted that the store could not be held liable for any injuries resulting from repairs attempted on the premises or maybe some sort of time-limit on how long a vehicle could stay before being towed. Of course, it’s probably no different than someone doing the same thing in a Walmart parking lot.
Speaking of Walmart, they’ve gotten a bad rep lately due to the rescending of the long-standing policy Sam Walton instituted decades ago allowing people (RVers, mainly) to stay overnight in Walmart parking lots. From what I understand, it is not those particular Walmarts at fault but is, in fact, the creation of local ordnances that forbid overnight parking in the parking lots. I don’t know if there were issues, but it’s a shame, for whatever the reason.
I’ve worked on cars in auto parts store car parks, and I’ve been grateful not to get chased away for it, but I can certainly understand a policy against it. It’s easy to get hurt working on a vehicle, especially when one probably doesn’t have quite the right tools; it’s difficult to keep one’s hands free of slippery oils and fluids, etc. Disclaimer, schmisclaimer; they’re not solid. If we’re talking a release of liability signed by whoever wants to work on a vehicle on the property, that might start to be sturdy enough.
It can also be hard to avoid spilling toxic fluids when working on a car. Whoever does it isn’t likely to stand up and say “Oops, I’ve just created a toxic spill in your parking lot”.
Vehicles are always coming in and out and milling around in parking lots, and people working on cars can tend to lose awareness of their surroundings. Release-of-liability or none, I sure wouldn’t want the hassle of dealing with a parking lot accident.
la673,
I know the place, yes, it’s now occupied by Zips cleaners, as you mentioned we can see the former garage door locations on Calvert St. In 1970 I worked part time at the ESSO station about a 1/2 mile north, next to the creek that ran under Rt1. We used to get most of our parts from CPAP. One of the other pump jockeys at the station had a 1958 Packard station wagon [very rare car] and he actually lived in the wagon full-time.
The 2 story brick building on the north east corner of the intersection of Rt1 and Calvert was a FIAT dealership until they stopped importing them. It’s now College Park Bicycle.
A few doors south on the same side of Rt1 was another car dealership at 7201 Washington Ave; Herman H. Follin Packard. Until the early 1980s the north side of the building still had the painted sign that filled most of the wall, it said “Follin Packard”, painted right on the brick surface. When Ms Follin died the building was sold and the sign painted over. Today the location has a 7-11 and other retail shops in it.
The Follins had a very large Victorian home at 6801 Washington Avenue, just south of the dealership on the same side of the road. It’s still there operating as an assisted living facility called Follin Home. I spent considerable time talking with the Follin family about their days operating a Packard dealership. Upon her death the family called me to come get the Packard items they no longer wanted.
I remember people talking about both a Nash and a Hudson dealership somewhere along Washington Ave, but I don’t know where the 2 showrooms were located.
Am I the only one wondering about the utility of keeping the rear doors on the car? There doesn’t seem to be enough room for a backseat once the camper is finished, but maybe interior storage is desired.
Could this be a plan for low-income retirement living? A man with some tools and an imagination will never be homeless.
He’s got the rear seats folded down but the doors might be handy to keep for a Lyft/Uber gig for some weekend mad money…Always need a side hustle!
But seriously, the roof was kept in place over the rear seats, the front of an Outback isn’t bad, but it’s nice to have a CrewCab format if only to store “stuff” and shopping instead of having to use the back camper door every time.
I’m quite curious about the intended floorplan, particularly in the rear seat area. Will the rear seat be maintained? Will it fold down and convert to some camping-related use? Can one section of the split rear seatback be folded down or removed to walk/crawl between the cab and camper sections?
You know, I wonder if this guy was inspired by the old Chevy Avalanche and upcoming Silverado EV. In effect, he’s going to have a similar ‘mid-gate’ for his home-built camper mod.
I’m getting flashbacks to this memorable scene. At least, the Suby wouldn’t lose control as easily as the Ford pickup, with its lower centre of gravity.
That guy looked like he was trying to flip the truck over, steering back and forth
I thought the same thing – the Outback camper, even with a weakened structure, still looks safer than those old very tall camper shells on pickup trucks.
Unbelievable sequences, leading to over-the-top car crashes, were hallmarks of the TV show CHiPs. 🙂 Almost like, he was deliberately trying to toss his passenger from the vehicle! To see a ‘normal’ conventional crash was the rare exception on the program, it seemed.
It appears, the driver and passenger in the Subaru would have the roof aft of the A-pillars, crushing down into the passenger cabin, in a rollover. Whereas, the pickup’s roof, maintained its structure.
Jim, unfortunately you are now obligated to keep track of this project and report on the final product!
I am genuinely curious. I wonder what sawing the roof off does to the structural integrity, but it looksl like the owner left the roof attached to both front and rear door pillars, so it may not have compromised it much. The camper frame itself looks quite well done. I’d say this has a good chance at succeeding.
I admire people willing to scratch the crazy itch and take something like this on. It’s interesting and ambitious.
Back in the early ’60’s (’62 or wherebouts) a guy who lived across from one of my uncles had a 1958 Chevrolet four door sedan; he cut off the body behind the front doors, removed it and built a wooden platform on top of the frame. He installed sheet metal to cover the opening on the body. I should have taken pictures.
It looks a bit ominous that the driver’s door is ajar. If it’s hard to shut already, what will it be like when the job’s finished?
Of course there’s always the possibility that he’s reinforced the floor already, but…..
I went to pick up some material at a local non-big-box building supply store this morning. Absolutely nothing of interest in the parking lot; not even any Rangers or S10’s, just one white Ford SuperDuty. But in the company lot across the street … a Peugeot 505 and a Dodge A100, and half a block away on my way home, a Datsun 520, and a few blocks later a VW Thing. Sorry, no pictures.
Some countries keep track of their road traffic-related death rate per 1 billion vehicle-km traveled. The highest ten of the few that do per Wikipedia:
Mexico 27.5
Malaysia 16.2
South Korea 13.8
Czech Republic 11.5
Belgium 7.3
Hong Kong 7.3
United States 7.3
New Zealand 7.2
Slovenia 7.0
Japan 6.4
While not enamored with US drivers, I’m not sure I would really rate them below most places I’ve been. Especially Italy. My introduction to that country was a race, literally a race, between 2 taxis from the airport to the hotel. Lines in streets were just the merest suggestions, everyone was all over the place. Granted this was eons ago, and things might have changed, but I sense it as almost part of national pride.
Anyway, back closer to topic, I would guess the high US fatality rate has to do with little enough traffic density to get to potentially fatal speeds, combined with lots of cars/trucks. And the current infatuation of large pickups/passenger trucks which lends to an unequal collision, between 6500 pound trucks and 3000 ipound cars. If traffic is so heavy it’s limited to 25MPH, you’re not going to have many fatalities. If traffic is so light you don’t have many collisions, fatalities are going to be low. But it’s possible we might just be in a middle ground.
Your Italy experience is right on. I rented a car and the drive from the airport to my downtown Roma hotel was interesting, especially about lane markers being mere suggestions. Sicily was even better, as stop signs were mere suggestions and truck drivers looking down at their phones while driving at speed.
“Sicily was even better, as stop signs were mere suggestions . . .”
That reminds me of what my brother said when he was a VP for Discovery Communications in the late 1980s, and he was headed to south America to observe the launch of an Arianne missile with a Discovery satellite onboard. His flight landed in Sao Paulo airport well after midnight.
He was advised to wear no watch, jewelry, or even his wedding band, and he was sent a photo of the driver who would be picking him up at the airport. Once he was in the car, he was told not to open a window. As they drove out of the city, he said traffic light red signals were to be ignored, especially if there were people carrying steel pipes waiting on the corners where traffic lights were working. He said each intersection was like a carefully choreographed figure-8 race, where no one wanted to hit another vehicle, at the same time not stopping because the guys with pipes would run over to the car!
Somehow, I can’t help from thinking that this thing looks better at this stage in its development than it’s going to once the owner actually covers the framing.
I just have this feeling that cedar shake shingles will somehow wind up a part of this.
This shows evidence of some thought and planning. I’m a little concerned about weight and structural strength. A bit of welded steel or aluminum would be more reassuring.
I’m curious what the final finish will be. Full retro hippy with cedar shingles, cheap RV with ribbed aluminum or fancy with smooth fiberglass panels? The shingled hippy trucks can be warm and water tight but they are extremely heavy, this looks more likely to have some sort of lightweight panel and styrofoam insulation.
This is my car / home ….they say necessity is the mother of all invention and I had lived in a cardboard box camper for almost 3 years …
I have had this car up to 70 mph in the interstate and it handles well . I replaced the old and tired struts/springs in the rear with primitive racing parts …made a world of difference . I live in it and I mostly just sit and study my bible .