I spend a fair bit of time hauling greasy car parts so I was looking for a 4x4 4 cylinder minitruck.Which is abit of a rarity these days.The trucks I was finding weren't even getting above 17 in town.So then I thought about a subaru legacy.I know they consistently get 20+ mpg in town.So has anybody ever converted a legacy station wagon into a pickup.IE cut the roof off after the front doors,enclose the cab and reinforce the "bed" area to get back the lost strength.So anyone done something like that?Any pics or stories about it?

 

4x4/awd is needed because in the summer I venture offroad to help clean up the area and then it snows in the winter...

There was a picture of a OBW that had been converted to a pick up, but that has been a while back, so don't know if the picture is still around.

 

Guess you could buy a Baja Subaru. Not much hauling capacity, but I guess you could pull out the back seat to make more hauling space. That space would also be out of the weather, so that could be a plus.

lots of us haul parts in our legacys / outbacks. i don't see the need for cutting the roof off, but i have dreamed about it. i suspect by the time you are hauling something big enough to need the roof gone you will have met the load limit of the car. but that's just a guess. a hood might travel better if there were no sides or roof.

 

i solved the problem by getting a small sailboat trailer and building a platform on it. it weighs about 350 lbs and i carry what ever i want, including my canoes. and if the whatever leaks, no worries.

I carry 8ft long pinewood derby track couple times a year for the scouts in my 99 brighton wagon. board 4 boards and they're just at the dash. weekends it's my dump trash hauler too.. I tie 12 ft long canoe onto the roof rack. I've used it to go camping to. I have foldable mat that fits in back for dirty items. what kinds of stuff you hauling that you'd need to chop roof?

http://www.henrysauto.com/MN.asp?pg=products&specific=143&loadup=1

I mean stuff like engines,transmissions,etc.something heavy that might leak fluids etc.Not to mention with a chop top it would be alot easier to load and unload items like an engine with a shop crane...

 

right now I have a load of greasy dirt metal that needs to go get scrapped.I don't really have any way of moving it, so its sitting outside my house.doing nothing other than making the place look like a dump...

I had fully dressed V8's and smaller engines in the back of my Loyale a bunch of times. If you put the honda accord front springs on the rear coilovers it can carry plenty of weight.