Yesterday, my main car-spotting operative on the West Coast, our own contributor Emily Velasco, sent me a genuinely fascinating picture of a car, taken by a friend of hers in Pomona, CA. As you can see up there, it’s a nice bright lime green 1970 BMW 2002, but quite skillfully converted into a pickup truck. It’s so good!
It made me realize that I’m a bit surprised I haven’t seen more BMW 2002 pickup truck conversions; the car is a pretty conventional front engine/rear-drive layout with a three-box body that should make a pickup conversion relatively easy.
Of course, “relatively” is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. It’s never just about sawzalling off the rear half of the greenhouse and unbolting the trunk lid, of course. Doing something like this right takes actual skill, and whomever made this one seems to have plenty of that.
Looking at the truck compared to an unmodified 2002, you get a real sense of how much work went into this. Note how the normal trunk lid cuts all the way down to the chrome trim line. On the pickup, the whole body above the beltline has been re-made to form the upper sides of the bed.
The fantastic round taillights have been inset a bit to fit on the tailgate, which is held in place with what look like the same general sort of latches as what were used on small ’70s and ’80s mini trucks like the Chevy Luv:
So, those are a pretty period-correct choice, I think. The cab seems to have been cut right at the B-pillar and a whole new rear window and panel has been fabricated. It’s all so nice and clean!
I found that the truck, which seems to have been built by someone named Ben, is available to be rented on a site called Driveshare, which has a few more photos of it:
Look how nicely the bed is handled! It may have been lifted from another truck, as the description notes that this was built from three separate vehicles, and maybe one of those was a pickup truck.
In a quick look around, I’ve found two other BMW 2002 pickup trucks, but I’m not sure either is quite as well-done as this green one. There’s a burgundy one that’s very nice, but you can see the seam from the trunk lid on the side of the bed, and then there’s a white one that looks more like an actual workhorse kind of truck, hauling parts for a BMW mechanic.
If anyone knows more about this little truck buzzing around Pomona, spreading its own particular kind of verdant joy, please let me know in the comments!
Jeebus! What a sweet ride! I feel those familiar urges of automotive lust rising in my nethers once again. Thanks Jason!
There’s a white 2002 pickup in Portland that’s also a period job. It has thin rectangular taillights that the then owner said were from a Japanese car. There are pictures around so we should unleash Torch for a positive ID
Beautifully wrong. I love it!
Lovely!
Probably has the structural integrity and rigidity of a wet cardboard box though.
I’d take my chances, probably with a smile on my face as it flexes during hard turns.
Me too, to be honest. And I like that it looks to have a proper tailgate, so many of these sorts of conversions don’t.
I don’t have a buttload of cash just laying around to indulge every sudden automotive whim (thank Glob) but I did register on that rental site and sent the guy a message w/my contact info asking him to get in touch should he ever decide to sell it. I dunno whether it’d be worth more or less than an unmolested 2002 (less I’m assuming, even though the work appears to be good in pix) but on the off-chance he ever decides to pass it on, I’d like to get a better look at it and make him some sort of reasonable offer on it.
Good luck!
Though the price of a decent 2002 these days is bordering on insane. One of many cars I wish I had picked up when they were far more reasonable, and more plentiful, but of course I had no money then.
Agreed Kevin. 🙂 Sadly, I’ve never even sat in a 2002, let alone driven one. Despite this, they are among my favorite (semi-affordable) old BMWs though, though decent ones were already getting pricey some years ago. They just look so good, and compared to present-day BMWs, they’re practically works of art (I can’t imagine our contemporary BMWs will ever grow on me… but maybe as I slide into senility…). 😉
I don’t expect to ever hear from the owner of that green pickup, but there’s no harm in making a polite inquiry… it’s SUCH a nice car. And you never know… even if there’s just a 1% chance of maybe getting an email from him some months/years down road… I’m pretty sure that I’ll still be interested. 😀
Do yourself a BIG favor – DON’T drive a 2002 – especially don’t ever drive a 2002tii. You will find yourself in the dark corners of the Internet trying to sell a kidney… 🙂
Even the ropey one my buddy owned back in the day was more fun than a barrel of monkeys. They are one car that absolutely lives up to it’s reputation. For both great driving fun and for being world champion rot-boxes, unfortunately. Super stout mechanicals though.
Right there with you on current BMWs. That company is sooo dead to me. Glad I got while the getting was still good, and I plan to keep my 2011 pair a very, very long time.
I’ll keep your advice in mind Kevin, but TBH if someone ever offers to let me take their 2002 around the block, I’m gonna have an awful hard time not saying ‘Yes! Please! Thank you!” I might even tear up a little bit, in awe and gratitude.
Same goes for a Citroen DS, Volvo Amazon, or Saab 99… I’d hate to go through life never having experienced at least a few minutes behind the wheel of such fascinating cars. 🙂
Yeah, you totally should. I’ve been lucky to have had the opportunity to drive ALL of those cars, and lots and lots more (I even owned a Trabant for a summer in Hungary). It just adds to the sickness that is wanting ALL of them.
If only I had Jay Leno money! Though really, as my tastes are considerably more pedestrian than his, just what one of his more valuable cars is worth would set me AND my garage up for life, LOL.
After seeing this, there is nothing Trump can say or sign today that would take the smile off my face.
Please don’t tempt him.
As he would say, “Challenge axpacted!”
Damn it – now the a-hole is going to tell one of his cabinet lizards “hold my Diet Coke”.
It is still before midnight and he is simply the best at everything including wiping the smiles off the faces of countless innocents and bystanders so you may have spoken too early.
Just delightful. We need more of this out in the world.
The ultimate smiling machine.
That’s pretty cool, wondering if they have auxiliary tail lights when the tail gate is down
Well, that’d be necessary if it were a production vehicle (as I know thanks to some of Jason’s other articles).
I wanna see this treatment applied to a BMW Isetta. Even better if it’s painted bright pink and decked out in hello kitty graphics and a big swinging pair of truck nuts out back.
Technically a Spanish ISO Isetta, and not a BMW Isetta, but you could get that from the factory:
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/buying-maintenance/a33511989/iso-isettacarro/
And yes, it would be adorbs in Hello Kitty drag!
Agreed! About the Hello Kitty thing. 🙂
As the former owner of a 2002, I am both horrified and delighted at seeing these images.
I never had one. I always wanted one, or to at least sit in/drive one a bit. Love the whole three-box, upright greenhouse thing it’s got going on. And it’s from long before BMWs got so complex and ugly.
Agree it’s a nice job but it really triggers my preservationist glands. (Located just above the adrenals; they spew milligram quantities of an unnamed sad/ resignation hormone on seeing things like a building torn down behind its façade, or classic furniture refinished with gloss polyurethane, etc etc.) If those glands had not been triggered, I wouldn’t have left a comment, duh!
Well done!
Love how they kept the chrome trim piece tying the taillights together. Great attention to detail.
Added to the List of Things That Bring Me Joy : cheerful green BMW 2002 pickup
I’d prefer it in a more traditional 2002 color, like orange or that cornflower blue I see them in sometimes, but yes, this thing actually makes me smile. 🙂
I like this El 2002amino and bonus points for the working tailgate!
Eat your heart out Maverick, here is the top gun unibody pickup we need.
Definitely looks like they did a great job and really sweated the details like the one piece quarter panel trim and trimming the taillight bezels to fit on the flat surface of their new location.
I second Still Not a Tony’s suggestion that the Autopian rents it and uses it for a couple of trips of moving DT’s stuff.
There is an E21 (3 series ) tow truck that pops up on my feeds sometimes
Awe, it’s adorable.
Old Parked Cars, what a blast from the past! Used to check that website regularly until a few years back when they stopped updating for so many months that I thought they had gone defunct or something. Good to know they’re still around & still posting. Also good that it looks like they no longer use “flesh-colored” as a tag for pictures they post of pink-beige cars which was always annoying, to say the least, given the wide spectrum of skin color and all that.
If it’s available for rent, man, that seems like a cheap way to generate a little content! Rent it, zip around town for a bit, maybe help David move, then write it up!
Where’s Griffin? This seems tailor made for him. He could have a regular feature called I Got The DT’s: the David Tracy Adventures where Griffin gives us the REAL story every time DT declares some pile he’s just encountered to be “the greatest thing ever”.
First installment: I Rented A Vintage BMW Sedan That Was Turned Into A Pickup, Used It To Help DT Move, And It Was Better Than His GMT400 In These Ways.
Yes, please.
Wonderful. The builder put some legitimate thought and skill into this.
Maybe with a little roll cage at least?
How about a brush guard and some lighting?
Wow, genuinely impressive and it works perfectly on a visual level!
Lovely. They must have considered a convertible pickup too.