Ahh truck it! The legend of Turd Ferguson (2004 VW Touareg V8)

It started as just wanting to buy a factory hitch and locking rear differential for my other Touareg (04 V8 coil suspension) but the guy wanted to get it out of his area (more on that later) so he pushed me to buy it. He said you could buy the whole thing, come get your parts, there is a scrapyard next door you could drag the carcass over to and be done. But no I was not done. 
 

So first day drove across CT to RI with some tools. Paid him for the car and one month of storage at $50 to the area outside his fenced area. Pulled the hitch and wiring off, drove home and with the process fresh out the hitch onto mine. Then I didn't do anything. Paid another $50 for storage for a second month, but needed to get it out of there. So I rented a U-Haul and towed my *cough* 1990 Mazda Miata home. Did very well towing a little under the Touaregs weight limit (7700 pounds). Touaregs are a little over 5k and the u-haul 2k.

Pulled some parts off swapped some parts from another parts Touareg, rinse, repeat, etc. Was always a bit finicky to start. This past time took a month of fighting to get it to start. Its fuel related and they have a PITA dual pump, non-serviceable filter so nothing was working. Finally got it to go today so I could move it to a better work area, that's also less visible from the road to be nicer to my neighbors. 
 

Backstory aside, now to the future. Scrap would give me next to nothing for it. The one I parted out I sold the brake calipers for nearly $500 (twice what the scrap quote was) so at the very least it would make sense to sell a couple more parts first. But I've gone done that road before pulling apart a Touareg. It is exhausting. So it's either going to stay or a couple parts are getting pulled so I don't completely lose money on it.

What I've dreamed of doing for a while has been to truck something. I had a MK4 Golf I almost did. The 97 Audi A4 that I sold on here, I almost did. And the parts Touareg I cut up I temporarily trucked it before killing it. So that's where I'm at. 
 

Since the US can't have the VW Amarok, I'm going to make a Touareg truck. But first I have to say goodbye to my first Porsche because it's in the spot I need. 
 

Details:

2004 VW Touareg V8 - with air suspension and the factory locking rear differential.

Mileage : Unkown, previous owner did some weird stuff to get it running including swapping the instrument cluster

Cats were cut out by him for scrap, so when it does run it's loud. First project will be to fab something up that I can make it quieter and have a home for the oxygen sensors.

I had a bad day at work over the summer, so the missing windshield is on me. I put a cinder block through it. At the time I did it I thought I was going to part it out.

I took the spare bumpers from the other parts vehicle and removed the lower half and will do a little more trimming to them for better approach and departure. Also have the hood and front fenders to swap so I can keep the silver parts as spares for my "nicer" Touareg. 

Finish removing the interior, then start cutting. I'll leave the rear doors alone at first until I figure out what trimming I may do to the rear arch.

The test Turd, and hiding in the background is my Avant before I sold it... 

I like where this is going

I laughed at the "towed my 1990 miata". been using that line at u haul anytime I rented a trailer for atleast 20 years now.

Also looking forward to seeing how this turns out 

following!

I use the '2006 civic' or 'focus' with Uhaul too

Wonder what they would do if there was an issue/wreck and you had a 6000lb SUV on their trailer.    That's always in the back of my mind.

In reply to onemanarmy :

Luckily last I needed to haul a car I remembered a friend of a friend had a car trailer. So I was able to borrow that. That was after U-Haul was being really weird with reservations (3 car dollies in my whole state?) and when I finally got one the lights weren't working so they wouldn't let me take it...

If something happened with U-Haul you'd probably just be on the hook for the trailer replacement cost and banned from renting U-Haul. Not sure they'd be able to go after you for more. 
 

Probably more trouble from police for unsafe load, etc. Car insurance might deny a claim or drop you after the fact depending on whether it was just you or multiple vehicles involved. 

onemanarmy said:

following!

I use the '2006 civic' or 'focus' with Uhaul too

Wonder what they would do if there was an issue/wreck and you had a 6000lb SUV on their trailer.    That's always in the back of my mind.

this is why i dont do that....

For the time being I don't need to move anymore cars, but in the future I'll just borrow my friends trailer. And be saving up for one of my own when I'm at a point of needing to haul more often.

Its always an extra hour each way between picking up a U-Haul and driving, then running out to drop it off after coming home with a car. It would be really nice to just be able to come home and park the trailer after a longer trip. 

Took two "cars" to the scrapyard today. Now the future truck is is mostly in my its spot to be worked on. 
 

Someone was interested on Facebook so I went back and found some more pictures of the test Touareg.

Bea-ute-iful

So here's what going on in my brain trying to plan how to cut.

1. Going to use the roof rails to help cover up some of the bedside.

2. Going to use smaller seats than the stock but need to plan how much space I need.

3. Hoping I might be able to use the top of the rear hatch / roof basically slid down into place.

4. Shave rear door handles to make it look more normal.

5. I was thinking about using the sunroof panel as a rear window. Also considered trying to bend down the rear roof section to form part of the back wall, but not sure what to do with the sides that it won't cover.

But first I'm still using it for some parts storage so I need to clean it out, and remove the headliner and other trim panels. Then remove excess wiring and parts. 

Huh. 

The truck I never knew I wanted to see built. Carry on...

So seeing Andrew's Civic truck he's selling I like the idea of potentially using a real truck back cab to finish the back. But I'm also kinda interested in repurposing the excess panels I'm cutting apart.

Still have some things to do before cutting so I have time to plan it out. 

Did some removing and cleaning. Being in the rural Northeast and the truck sitting around a lot, especially without a windshield the critters have gotten in. Looking a lot better now and I might make a couple cuts this weekend. 
 

Probably should have tried a different tactic on the rear hatch... The design on the later generation, the 2011 I had was so easy. This one not so much. 
 

Ready to mark out some cut lines and make it a truck, the the next couple of days. 

Looks so much better than the last one, with a little bit of mockup. 
 

Not really progress but just fun. The Jeep wheels and Eurowise adapters were on my other Touareg. But the tread is spanked on them so getting a little unsafe to drive on. Since this thing isn't really going anywhere figured I might as well swap so the registered Touareg is a little safer to drive. 
 

Just a lot of looking at it yesterday. The rear glass comes down at an angle normally but I'm trying to see it redoing the mounting of it. It may look ok if I can mount it more vertically.

Would need to be higher than the quick zip tie hang and the top of the frame cut to get that height.

Other potential thought is a MK4 Jetta wagon hatch as they are fairly vertical.

dan0 said:

Just a lot of looking at it yesterday. The rear glass comes down at an angle normally but I'm trying to see it redoing the mounting of it. It may look ok if I can mount it more vertically.

.....

What if you tried rotating the glass 180 degrees (upside-down) and making the curved part up, which would closer match the curve of the roof line?  Also gives you a straighter section to match for the lower weld-in panel?

This is ridiculous in all the right ways

Indy - Guy said:

What if you tried rotating the glass 180 degrees (upside-down) and making the curved part up, which would closer match the curve of the roof line?  Also gives you a straighter section to match for the lower weld-in panel?

When I read this a few hours ago my brain was not working properly and I had in my head a 90 degree turn when you said 180. I was thinking how is that going to work? Now a few hours later my brain is functional again and it makes sense. 
 

I'll give that a try tomorrow and post a picture.