Jerry Feather

I just bought this 87 928 pickup conversion from Mark A at 928 International. I think he bought it about 10 or 12 years ago, and I remember seeing some of his postings about it. Just recently, after some apparent ownership mishaps, it has come back to him in a somewhat stripped condition. Rather than strip it the rest of the way he offered it to me at a very reasonable price; and I had to jump on it.

I had my own plans to make one of these conversions, often called a "Ute," for utility, but I never made much progress on mine. This conversion now is missing the engine and drive train out to the wheels, including the brakes, but I have some extra parts including an engine, transmission and most, if not all, of the pieces to put this car back together (I'll bet Mark will be tickled to sell what i might not have.) I'm going to go the Anaheim and pick it up with my trailer in about mid July, so it may be then before I can post any progress on the resurrection of this conversion.

Based on my own design of this kind of 928 conversion I have some ideas about how to improve on this one.

There are about a handful of these pickups around the world and many of then leave something to be desired; notwithstanding the basic negative reaction that I see has been common about them. I had a 1975 GMC Srint which is the GMC version of the El Camino. I loved that design of car and think there is a lot about it to be subtly adapted to this car.

One of the pictures is the car when Mark bought it some time ago and the other is the car now.

joejoe

I remember seeing it when very nice condition at sharktoberfest I believe.

Petza914

Jerry, that's awesome. Good luck with the project. I was tempted myself to do it for my son as he'd be able to drive a 928 and put his dirt bike in the back, which would have been pretty cool. There's a complete Euro S motor for sale on Facebook for $3,500 if you really wanted to jazz it up.

Strosek Ultra

Seen in Denmark.
Åke

Jerry Feather

I think maybe there are several of these conversions in Europe, but not because of the actual utility of them but as a means of driving a sports car without a huge tax liability which such a utility vehicle was somehow exempt from. Does anyone know anything more about that?

That may also include the European six-wheel version of one of these conversions.

Jerry Feather

From my perspective as a designer I have always thought that all of these 928 pickup conversions have a significant design flaw in them. When I was working on my own design/version of this conversion I had cured the flaw, at least in my own mind. With this new project from Mark A. I expect to also cure the flaw with a little bit of body work

Today I spent a bit of time at the office with some scotch tape, a pair of scissors and a few pictures of the car out of my copier. Here are the design cures that I have in mind. The top of each pair of pictures is the cure and the bottom is the car as it was about 12 years ago. Can you see the difference? What do you think of it?

Rob Edwards

If Strosek made a roof fairing for 928 pickups, that's what it would have looked like. Except Jerry Feather's making it.

Strosek Ultra

Rob, what do you mean by a Strosek roof fairing? Is it what we can see on the roof of this car? I do not have it on any of my cars.
Åke

Rob Edwards

HI Åke - sorry, poor choice of words- by 'fairing' I meant that second spoiler thing at the top of the rear window. In Jerry's pictures it looked to me like he had extended the rear of the roof line a little bit and it reminded me of those roof extensions / 2nd spoiler / sun shade / whatever the Strosek cars have at the top of the hatch glass. But now that I look again I may be completely wrong.

EDIT: Now that I'm looking on a bigger screen, now it's clearer that Jerry's thinking about raising the height of the edges of the bed and tapering them downward from front to rear. Scratch everything I said about the roofline....

belgiumbarry

Indeed, here are ( factory ) pickups registrated as "utility" cars which means low taxes not related to the engine as with cars.
Some breaks are approved to convert in utility car ( again low taxes ) by removing the rear seats , a flat cargo floor installed which must be at least half of the wheel base in lenght. I had a BMW 530 break like that.

but... as tech inspection became more & more severe, i don't think a self made conversion as a 928 pickup has any chance anymore to get it approved. Those days are gone.

PS we were a bit spoiled, before 2020 a oldtimer only needed tech inspection when it changed owner.... so as long as you kept it yourself , you could go modding.... but from 2020 they all need tech inspection ( every 2 or 5 years depending age ) .
And they must be original ! .... many cars weren't even worth to redo to oem.... i did it with my regularity rally BMW CS from '70.... removed roll cage, bucket seats , harnesses, hydraulic hand brake etc....to get it again road legal with oem parts.

Zirconocene

Jerry, you made it an old Ridgeline (or Avalanche, I guess)!

Can you talk through your thoughts on the reason for the changes? I've always sort of thought that once you have an exposed bed like that, that aero balance and efficiency is mostly dictated by the induced low pressure over the open bed but maybe I'm misinterpreting why you made the change.

At any rate, I'd love to hear more about it.

Thanks

jjeffries

The European tax thing made me think of the DP 924/44/51 “shooting brake” conversion created for the same reason. I’d love to have one of those.

John

Jerry Feather

Okay, Glenn. Your are a good straight man, so here goes.

Over the last many years I have owned many different cars. My first was a 41 Plymouth two door sedan that I bought in about 1957. Since then it has been too many to recount. In those, aside from the Porsches and the Eldorado Cadillacs that I now have, the one that actually stands out in my memory was the 75 GMC Sprint. That was the GMC version of the Chevy El Camino. Oddly that car was derived by the factory from the then contemporary Chevy Malibu. The Malibu was in fact particularly kind of ugly in my opinion. Nevertheless the El Camino version was perhaps the most stylish car that I have come across, present company excluded.

From a styling standpoint the 928 has the bottom of the window line follow thru from the bottom of the door windows to the bottom of the rear quarter windows and that is a perfect styling technique. However when the rear top of the car is cut off to make it into a pickup that line needs to change. As with my Sprint that line simply goes away and the then body line around the top edge of the pickup bed takes on a completely different purpose. That line really needs to be elevated to now fit the new purpose of the car and that dictates it to be raised. Simple as that. However, all the guys who have done this conversion have seen the common line as the necessary line for the top of the pickup bed. That is a mistake.

Oddly, if you google images of the then contemporary versions of the Ford Ranchero you will see that they did not agree with me. Most, but not all, of them are like the 928 conversions. However most of them are also very boxy looking cars and the line seems to fit better there. With the rounder cars like the Chevy Malibu and the 928 the line really needs to change.

Another consideration is that I like to try to eliminate as many of the aspects of "conversion" as I can and one of them is this line around the top of the bed. Not only does it look "right" but it helps to make the car look more like is was "the Factory's pickup version of the 928" rather that someone's conversion.

Look again at the pictures and see if you don't agree with me. Or wait until I get the chance to do the body work myself, and then decide. You will be amazed at the difference is presentation appearance.

ROG100

My car for the last ten years - glad it went to a good home.
I never had the time to even start to finish it.

belgiumbarry

wasn't the tax in the US less for a 4 seat compared a 2 seat car ? Or was it in the UK ?
I always thought that as so many companys were making 2+2 cars , ( 928,850i) , in fact 2 seats and 2 seats scale 1:2 .... for kids .

Or i'm i wrong ?