I cut a VW Rabbit pickup in half and hung it on my wall
Some people hang paintings on their walls. Some people hang 4K TVs. Some hang Volkswagen pickup trucks.
First, there was a truck
Blake Hendrickson is the owner of CarParts4Sale.com in Iowa City, Iowa. During the summer of 2017, he recycled this old Volkswagen Rabbit pickup into an impressive art project. We spotted this amazing DIY and asked him how he pulled it off. Here's how he did it, in his own words:
"I own a VW dismantling business, and it is business as usual to dismantle MK1 Rabbits," he told Roadshow. "All the good parts were salvaged. A side art project was done at the same time as the dismantling."
Let the dismantling begin
"Started off with a 1983 VW Rabbit Caddy pickup MK1... diesel."
It was unsafe to drive
"This truck was done for. It looks nice in the pictures, but it had severe rust."
All of the useable parts were salvaged
"A reciprocating saw was used for most of the cutting."
The car was a shell of its former self
"An engine lift, dolly cart and forklift were mostly what moved this partial car around."
Here's what happened to the rest of the shell
"The leftover shell was recycled at a local metal recycling facility."
There was no way to repair the car
"Here is an example of the deep-buried rust. Those are massive holes, and this is just a picture that I happened to take, not even trying to identify rust."
Preparing for mounting
"The board is a two-by-ten. We used bolts through several parts of the truck's body."
A tinted windshield is legal if it's hanging from your wall
"The windshield was cut and painted from the backside to look tinted, because it cracked when cutting."
Then the bottom was touched up
"The underside was fiberglassed in some areas where it was rusted through, and 3M-brand undercoat was used for the black look."
It's the slowest car on two wheels
"The wheels were mounted with trailer spare-tire mounts from Harbor Freight."
Just a quick shine
"No paintwork was done, but we did polish."
Keep going to see more pictures from this amazingly cool project, including the final touch: USB LED taillights.