International Harvester - Custom Rig = Maximum Family Hauler
 

This showed up in my driveway this weekend. No, it's not mine. . . unfortunately. It belongs to a friend of a friend as they stopped by to pick up some stuff. Though I'd share since it's a very "interesting" vehicle:


This is built out of 3 different IH trucks. Two Travel-alls (IH Suburban equivalent) and a third rig that donated the double rear doors. It has three row seating and a HUGE cargo area behind the third row. To say it is cavernous is an undersatement. As it showed up, with the third row folded down there's about an 8 ft long flat cargo area that still leaves seating for 6 on the generous bench seats.

There are a total of 6 passenger doors on this sucker, 8 if you include the double rear doors. Almost the entire vehicle is nothing but steel and there is very little other materials on the interior. Dash is steel, sides are steel, even under the hood the air-intake system is all welded steel. When the owner takes it up camping he just sleeps in the back. For privacy, curtains are put up and held in place by attaching magnets to the interior above the windows. But there's a fiber board head liner and carpeting and some letherette-like stuff on the seats and that pretty much rounds out the creature comforts. Yet for the spartan interior everything felt VERY comfortable sitting inside. The seats are very soft and you sink into them in a nice, barcalounger-like way. The steering wheel is crafted out of tounge-and-groove wood that is rivited to a steel ring. Very nice touch that you don't see anymore (probably for a wise reason). Acres of glass everywhere with clean site and sill lines which makes for a very bright and open interior feel.

This beast is powered by a 7.3L turbo diesel out of a Ford truck routed through a 5 spd manual transmission. Even with this rolling on 35" tall tires and D60 axles the owner manages about 18 mpg cruising on the highway (and about 13-4 mpg towing). Not bad for a 7400 lb. vehicle.













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That's friggen cool! He/you should submit that to the Autoblog. :D

SLICK!!!!
That is really neat!

That's a very Jalopnik kind of thing. They'd go apeshit over that over there. For whatever reason, they seem to love them some Travel-alls. The only way to make it better would be to turn it into an El Camino, somehow.

I don't exactly love SUVs but that thing is sweet.