Since the advent of the vehicle, people have been customizing them to suit their tastes while pushing the limits of their engineering and artistic abilities. The Volkswagen Beetle is one of the most customized vehicles of all time due to its low relative cost and high production volume. Up for sale here on Craigslist is a neat custom-built “truck”. Built on a Beetle chassis, this vehicle combines a 1967 Bug front end with a 1940 Ford truck cab and a custom truck bed. Located in Washington, this rig is being offered for $8,500. Much thanks to Tony Primo for sending in this cool and interesting custom to check out!
There could be a book written on all the entrepreneurs who have made a living off building custom parts for VWs. From the Meyers Manx to the, ahem, interesting Rolls-Royce front end kits that were popular in the ’80s, the Beetle has been fertile ground for interesting aftermarket and custom vehicles. More importantly, air-cooled VWs have been the entry point for many professional car builders into the world of custom cars. But the humble Bug will always be one of the greatest cars for home tinkering.
I know we can’t get too much information from the pictures on this ad, but from what we can see, this is a really neat car. Obviously, we can’t measure the paint thickness or see fine details, but if you are looking for a tidy, unique, one-off car/truck/Bug vehicle, this is a great little rig, and is sure to spark many conversations, long stares, and thumbs-up as you drive around town. The builder really melded the Ford and Bug components together well, and the stance is just right, too. The louvers on the rear are a nice touch, and the dual carbs on the VW engine should help this scoot around nicely.
While it is always nice to see the latest offerings from Chip Foose and our favorite professional builders, there are many gems in this hobby that an average person with a day job has built in their garage. This has always been an interesting sub-genre of this great hobby. It is hard enough to find time to do general maintenance on an old car (at least for me), so knowing that non-pros are building these types of cars in their spare time is inspiring. So, what’s your take on this ride? What details do you see that I’m missing? Do you have any favorite home-built rods?
If you judge this purely based on its ability to draw a crowd at a coffee and cars, I’ve seen many less deserving at a higher price.
Steve R
Classy offhanded compliment, Steve R. and 100% right. From my very novice POV someone did a great job combining two very different machines into one very cool looking ride at a terrific price.
Tastefully done modification. I like it.
Again I make no secret that I love el caminos and any other conversions that are similar to them such as this. Its a fun nice build.
Suicide doors would really help bring it up a notch.
I recall body kits to add a “1940 Ford” front end to your Beetle; that might have finished off this project!
I love it, but the description reads like it was written by an AI.
Very nicely done. I just bought a Fireville-DeCarlo… Which translates to, a 78 Monte Carlo frame, with a 70 Bonneville body, and 68 Firebird nose and rear end. I know… Sounds horrible, but nicely done, guy spent a lot of hours on it. He used it to pull his 68 Firebird drag car around the track.
That sounds interesting-upload a photo please!
Tried to… ? Not sure if it worked… Not the sharpest crayon in the bunch over here when it comes to that stuff…https://photos.app.goo.gl/iZXPSkbjywK1QFb58
The arse end is even better. He wielded rear doors of a Suburban together for the back window. The trunk is open like a little storage area, with the firebird arse…
Yeah, posted the picture but 50% of posts don’t show up here for a few months now….
When it comes to the original shop-built one-offs of the ’50 or so, I can’t recall the looks of this puppy but I seem to recall it had a Buick Roadmaster straight-eigh with eight (coun’t ’em, e-i-g-h-t !) Amal carbs, one per cylinder. Imagine balancing that out!
Oh, and it was called a BuLinForMercillac. Talk about bits & pieces!