Let’s See If We Can Figure Out What This Home-Built Wooden Car Was Based On

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a very fortunate man, for a wide variety of reasons: my family; Nissan Pao ownership; the existence of such a wide and varied array of canned and preserved fish; all you wonderful Autopians; the way that green dense floral foam stuff feels when you push on it with your fingers; and, significantly, the fact that we have Autopian contributor Emily Velasco out in the world finding interesting cars and sending me the pictures.

This most recent find is one of my favorites, because it feels like an idea that may have flitted through almost all of our minds at one point or another, only to be dismissed as a terrible, terrible idea: building a crappy wooden body for a car, an idea that usually occurs sometime between wrecking your car and realizing how huge your insurance deductible is.

We’ve had a few stories about wooden cars before, but what all of those had in common was that the woodworker-builders were extremely skilled and talented. This one, I think maybe less so. That’s not to disparage it, of course: the fact it was built at all is a testament to, um, something. But this does look a like the sort of wood construction that I suspect pretty much any of us could be capable of, given enough time and booze

There’s a lot of interesting design choices going on here in this what looks to be mostly plywood car. Those suicide, rear-hinged doors, for example. That somewhat Seussified, whimsical shape of the upper A-pillar. The carpet (?) roof, the practical pickup bed with the external fenders, the running boards, all of it.

It looks like it once sported some fancy LED headlamps, which are now dangling by their optic nerves:

There also appears to be a nice layer of varnish on the wood that really brings out the grain, which almost gives it a leopard-skin effect.

Okay, but what was this car before being re-skinned in sliced tree meat? Looking at the engine, I think we have some clues:

That plastic intake manifold sure looks familiar. Where have I seen that before?

In our ill-fated NV200 Taxi! There are a few differences, but all of the key stuff looks to be in the same place: that intake manifold, the ECU, that fuse box, alternator, battery (not present in the wood car, but its spot is filled by what looks like a can of starting fluid), and so on. The four-lug wheels rule out another NV200 van as the platform, but this engine was used in Sentras – so this could have been a 2007 or so Sentra with the 2.0-liter four MR20DE engine.

I could be wrong, and I’m absolutely curious to hear your guesses. But even more, I’d love to know the story behind the Plywood Prowler here. What motivated this? Was it a case of a wrecked Sentra and a dream? What was this thing like to drive? Where did that windshield come from – was it the rear window of a pickup? Were all the panels flapping around, or did it hold together?

Emily said she’ll check back and see if she can talk to the owner/builder. I hope she finds him, because I have so many questions.

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