VW tripple cab pick-up

Tuesday, 18 November 2008
1 Comments

It sounds like a joke doesn't it -- what do you get if you cross a
panel van with a pick-up? The answer isn't a panel-up or a
pick-van but the one and only Tripple Cab. Get a load of this

Those of you who are into your Buses will already know all about the rare Binz
double cabs - modified VW single cab pick-ups that pre-date the factory crewcabs.

But for those that don't, here's a brief resume. Binz was a German coachbuilders
who, in the late 1950s, took standard single cab pick-ups and lengthened them in the
cab area to make some extra covered storage space available behind the driver and
front seat passenger. A new, wider side door was added on the passenger side only
for entry and the result was a functional, if rather poorly constructed half pick-up, half panel van.

The idea was a success though and, according to Binz buffers at least, around 550
of these boss-eyed beasts were built before Volkswagen decided to produce their
own far better looking and better built double cab, or crew cab, depending on your
persuasion.

But what if someone had gone to Binz, or a similar coachbuilders, and said "I want
one of those, but make the cab bit a bit longer, okay." Surely Binz would have
obliged yet, despite the myriad special bodied versions built on the good old VW Bus
platform, it seems no one ever did. Until now. The triple cab, or Tripple Cab as its
owner Kevin McCain (better known as Pig Pen to his friends), is the brainchild of
Chris Clark, the same guy whose Reichspost Beetle pick-up we featured last month.
Clearly a man with a fertile imagination, Chris penned the idea for the Tripple and Pig Pen translated the drawing into reality.

"I bought, sold and bought back the two
Buses it took to build this," he told us. "It was obviously meant to be!"

Starting with a '58 Panel, Pig Pen lopped the back half, or at least the back quarter, off right behind the side loading doors and grafted on the back panel of the '57 single cab in its place (and before anyone starts blubbing about that, we should point out that somebody else in the past had cut the entire underside out of the pick-up to fit a mid-mounted V8 engine and Ford 9-inch back axle, so it was well beyond saving).

That got the overall dimensions and look for the Bus sorted, but that was really just the start of the work. And what makes it all the more remarkable is that this was Pig Pen's first restoration. Go big or go home, huh?

For the full story check out the December 2008 issue of VolksWorld magazine. On sale on 31 October and then available through back issues.

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