making a "cab only " car ? fenderless car?

i'd like to take a pickup truck (s10) and take everything but the cab off of it... besides all the little legal issues (which i don't really have to worry about) any ides? pros/ cons . i'd like to have it be slammed , a la old hot rod style but with big wheels front and rear , notched frame in the rear for the axle to go up high... how would one make the cab nicer than just a box? and lower the cog? body dropping it?

All basic hotrodding stuff. I believe its called channeling when you notch the floor to drop the body over the frame.

i saw a PT Cruiser sitting outside of a body shop with no front fenders on it a couple of weeks ago.. it looked right..

an S10 cab with no other body work would look "not so right" to me, but it's not my truck so my opinion doesn't really matter..

no bed or a flat wood bed is one thing... but I'll agree on the meh thought of the lacking front end...

not exactly what you are talking about... but sorta kinda...

Here's a 1970s Ford F-100 concept that Thom Taylor drew up for Rod & Custom magazine

As far as using an S-10 chassis on an open fendered car, it's been done and it never looks right. Just whip up your own 2x4 tubing T-Bucket style frame (google T-Bucket frame plans) and use a traditional hot rod front end like this one from Speedway---

It'll look like ass without a metric ton of work.

My god! That one with the red wheels just made me throw up on my dog!

Appleseed wrote:

Not liking the tractor grill

Not to discourage you, but you can see from the photos above, this is the kind of thing you'd spend $10k worth of time and materials building, and you'd be lottery-winning lucky if you got $2500 for it when it's done. Why not just build a T-Bucket style car that would at least have some real world value when done? I've had a few T's and have always done ok with them.

Here's a pile of parts that I'm collecting for my next one. I've got maybe $500 bucks in what you see here, and with a few more craigslist and swap meet scores, I'll be well on my way.

Here's a rendering Nick Crouch of surface-dvd did awhile back along the same lines you were thinking, looks to be based loosely off a Mitsubishi cab:

In reply to xflowgolf:

So, that's an air-cooled V-8?

T.J. wrote: In reply to xflowgolf: So, that's an air-cooled V-8?

also, why the side exit exhaust when there is that whole lack of a bed behind the cab?

A smooth, flat firewall is imperatve as are front fenders and a cowl. But like what was said earlier, gotta be channelled and dropped in the weeds to even approach a cohesive look.

Appleseed wrote: It'll look like ass without a metric ton of work.

No amount of work will make it look like anything else but ass.

The front axle needs to be stretched to the very front of the frame and the frame horns need to be smoothed out. Maybe then, and I do mean maybe, the proportions wouldn't be so off and you'd get the look you want.

If you put a standard cab on an extended or blazer frame and moved it all the way back you might get the front wheels out where they need to be. Then you could leave enough of the fenders and hood to cover up the firewall and stuff on it.

With the steering set up the way it is, though, I'm not sure it would ever look good. It's not like you can cut off the frame any shorter than the steering box.

wow, it looked way cooler in my head haha, still not totally discouraging, maybe a cab from something else on there?... hhhmhhhmhmhm.

I like Aeromoto's idea:
pair a roadster pickup body

with a track nose

I always wanted to do somthing like this but starting with a S10 frame / driveline and put a 34 chev coup body on it mounted way back so the rear wheels of the S10 are in the wheel wells of the 34 body. Add a intresting engin. Paint flat black and or leave the rust errrrr patina and have fun.

There is/was a kit car company that used an S10/Blazer as the starting point. I forget if it used the whole cab or just the doors.

Knurled wrote: There is/was a kit car company that used an S10/Blazer as the starting point. I forget if it used the whole cab or just the doors.

You mean the roadster.

Knurled wrote: There is/was a kit car company that used an S10/Blazer as the starting point. I forget if it used the whole cab or just the doors.

There may be several. Rodster used a blazer http://www.rodster.com/home.htm

JoeyM wrote: I like Aeromoto's idea: pair a roadster pickup body

Holy Berkleying E36M3 that's a lot of $$ for a pickup cab!!!!!!!

JoeyM wrote:

Knurled wrote: There is/was a kit car company that used an S10/Blazer as the starting point. I forget if it used the whole cab or just the doors.

There may be several. Rodster used a blazer

The rodster started off with the blazer roadster thing you pointed to, then started offering truck kits and "panel delivery" kits, which were the only ones that looked halfway decent IMO. The proportions on those rodster things just never looked right though.

JoeyM wrote:

Knurled wrote: There is/was a kit car company that used an S10/Blazer as the starting point. I forget if it used the whole cab or just the doors.

There may be several. Rodster used a blazer http://www.rodster.com/home.htm

one of those on a 4X4 chassis with the ZR2 package could be interesting..