Photo: imperf3kt on Instagram
Have a wild guess which are the best- and worst-selling MINI nameplates in the United States of America. Obviously enough, those would be the Countryman compact SUV and Clubman compact station wagon.
BMW of North America sold merely 2,654 units of the Clubman last year, which makes them pretty rare in this part of the world. None, however, is more special than the “El Camini” homebrew conversion to a single-cab pickup truck. Owned by Timothy, a.k.a. imperf3kt on Instagram, the build started life out as a 2017 model with all-wheel drive. A little over a year ago when Timothy decided to convert his longroof into a trucklet, the odometer indicated 130,000 miles (209,214 kilometers) without a single major issue.
The first stage of the build consisted of cutting the ceiling liner, lots of drilling, and extending the wires 18 feet (5.5 meters) to run under the bed floor. Timothy had to cut the roof from the B-pillars backward, install rear side walls, add some bracing and support bars, weld the bed floor, treat for rust, fit a rear window, sand the body shell, then spray all the body panels.
After the clear coat dried up perfectly smooth, Timothy proceeded to lift his El Camini, spruce it up with all-terrain rubber and six-spoke wheels, install a roof rack, LED lightbar, full-size spare wheel, a brush guard with two auxiliary lights, and a high-rise intake on the driver side. Don’t call it a snorkel, though, because traversing a river would still render the vehicle kaput because the underhood electrics and electronics are not protected from the water.
Unfortunately hit by a deer on the passenger side two weeks ago, the El Camini “took it like a champ and we’re still driving” according to Timothy.
The first stage of the build consisted of cutting the ceiling liner, lots of drilling, and extending the wires 18 feet (5.5 meters) to run under the bed floor. Timothy had to cut the roof from the B-pillars backward, install rear side walls, add some bracing and support bars, weld the bed floor, treat for rust, fit a rear window, sand the body shell, then spray all the body panels.
After the clear coat dried up perfectly smooth, Timothy proceeded to lift his El Camini, spruce it up with all-terrain rubber and six-spoke wheels, install a roof rack, LED lightbar, full-size spare wheel, a brush guard with two auxiliary lights, and a high-rise intake on the driver side. Don’t call it a snorkel, though, because traversing a river would still render the vehicle kaput because the underhood electrics and electronics are not protected from the water.
Unfortunately hit by a deer on the passenger side two weeks ago, the El Camini “took it like a champ and we’re still driving” according to Timothy.
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