Convert a Freelander Adventurer to a Pick-Up?

I've got the 3 door Adventurer on a '55' plate. 67,000 miles in a good condition. I'm now considering converting it into a pick-up truck style car. (I've never removed the plastic roof because if I want to drive in the fresh air I'll use my SLK 280 and the Freelander without a roof just looks bl00dy ugly!). Has anyone done this? Can it be done? The vehicle has a natural body line that would allow for a bit of cutting, which, done properly could make it a more sought after motor?
Comments?

Good fun for you but doubt if it would be worth more. I thought of doing the same myself but reconned it would be more work than I could be bothered with.

If you look at the disco/rr pickup conversions few gain in value. They are sought after but only to put up on ere for a laugh. At one point peeps were pushing to see if locals would pop round as a potential buyer just so they could get a pic of the owner/converter with the conversion to add value to the chuckle factor. We can cover the UK so catch all the funny ones by using peeps local to it. You get the occasional one which has been done/finished to a good standard. If you go ahead then you need to use it yerself, or factor in a loss if you sell. You could be lucky but I can't remember ever seeing one. Payload int massive on the FL.

Interesting conversion. But I totally agree with Hippo. The seldom look good. Curious ones I've seen are a Rover 3500 SD1 ute/pick-up and a Rover 90 pick-up!

Cutting the bodyshell means the finished vehicle will require a BIVA test (used to be SVA)
Disco/rangies dont need to go through this as they have a separate chassis so body swaps or modifications are allowed but the Freelander is a monocoque so any cutting of the shell is classed as "significant changes" and will need to pass BIVA.
In case you didnt know, BIVA is a massive faff and relatively expensive. It is the test that self-built kit cars have to go through before they are allowed on the road.

Thats the legal side. For the practical side, most people start this kind of project, take a grinder to a perfectly good car, realise that its not as easy as it looks on some threads on the internet, find themselves in way over their head, the car sits on the drive under a shredded blue tarp for 8 months until the wife insists they do something about "that bloody eyesore" and it gets sold for spares or scrapped.
Scrap is currently under thirty quid per ton so you would probably have to pay a scrappy to take it away.

Making it more sought-after? not a chance. Firstly; the load bed is too short and the waist line too high for it to be even slightly practical - it will never be more than a novelty. Secondly; Nobody in their right mind will buy a car thats been chopped about like that so you will be the cars last owner before the crusher.

In conclusion - go right ahead. Post lots of photos as I need a good laugh.

I'd have thought a three door would be relatively easy?

Just grab a commercial cage for behind the front seats, plate it and seal the edges, then make sure water can escape the fish tank in the back? Shouldn't need any cutting.

The issue is waterproofing the internal bits and securing the wiring.

Seems a lot of effort for a freelander tho

Yes, just boarding the rear means no legal issues with BIVA (will technically need to tell DVLA of revised number of seats though which I doubt would go smoothly) but leaves the problem of it looking pish.

Frankly, they look dumb as hell with the roof off - very badly proportioned, and certainly hopeless as a practical pickup.



It would look slightly less tragic if the rear slope were cut off in front of the window aperture, which is what I assume he is talking about by
"natural body line that would allow for a bit of cutting".

I think with just the plastic roof off they do look a bit... stunted.

Immeasurably improved with the roof bars still on though imho - the roof bars continuing the line re squares the car off and makes them look whole again even without the roof on.

Colonial said:

I've got the 3 door Adventurer on a '55' plate. 67,000 miles in a good condition. I'm now considering converting it into a pick-up truck style car. (I've never removed the plastic roof because if I want to drive in the fresh air I'll use my SLK 280 and the Freelander without a roof just looks bl00dy ugly!). Has anyone done this? Can it be done? The vehicle has a natural body line that would allow for a bit of cutting, which, done properly could make it a more sought after motor?
Comments?

Click to expand...

The Freelander is a unibody car (monocoque). I daresay from a legal perspective, cutting into the body to make it a pickup will be seen as altering the chassis. So you will need an IVA to make it legal for road use.

If I were to do it, then yes, I would cut in front of the rear windows and along the body line which is clearly visible on the first photo. That said, with the advice provided, unless it was carried out by a specialist, it would be a project doomed to fail.

Colonial said:

If I were to do it, then yes, I would cut in front of the rear windows and along the body line which is clearly visible on the first photo. That said, with the advice provided, unless it was carried out by a specialist, it would be a project doomed to fail.

Click to expand...

The problem with removing the triangular window frame will be a massive reduction in body stiffness. The triangle forms part of the integral roll cage the 2 door Freelander has. Therefor loosing what seems a minor window frame, is in fact a major structural element of the vehicle. Removing this would be similar to cutting the roof off a 5 door Freelander. You'd end up with a Freelander that had suspension in the middle of the car as the body flexed.

It could be made a lot more useful if you put it in a crusher.

Body Rigidity could be reinstated with a simple roll cage incorporating a hoop inside the B pillars within which I'd put a cross behind the front seats, and a shallow angle bracers, running from roughly where the green oval is on the B-Pillar to the top of the strut turrets... This could be ran within the rear quarter panel, and as such wouldn't affect the external appearance of the vehicle. But that would add more weight than you would remove with the rear window frame / C pillars and eat into your already pretty low payload. It is doable, but I can't see it being worth doing IMHO.

If someone can do a rover 75 into a pickup then go for it.





Sva approval was his only issue.

Then he went and did this one lol.



And there's this zt pickup also.





Apparently it was just awkward, but he took loads of photos as he went and showed them everything and when it came to sva no problem.

Don't think much of the space in his pickup, the sides seem naturally thick.

I appreciate the vision, design and effort [work] that went into those projects. But it does kind of point out people with an excess of time and £ on their hands.

That 75 is a classy looking ute tho, need to get back to the 50's with their big engined pick ups, Austin westminsters and the like!

You need to shift down to Aus/NZ then. Is a 6.2L V8 big enough?

http://www.holden.co.nz/cars/ute

http://www.ford.co.nz/commercial/ultimate-falcon-ute/models/xr6-styleside-box

I rum a Ford F-250 King cab auto, but it's sluggish compared to the Holden