Builds spinning the roulette wheel (twice) on a 1996 Middle East HDJ81 at auction

[cruzinfj1]

Looks like they may have used the chassis/running gear from a Nissan, maybe?? Not up on all of that stuff, but sure is interesting!! Didnt even make it to the body.... lol

 

[John Young]

Looks like they may have used the chassis/running gear from a Nissan, maybe?? Not up on all of that stuff, but sure is interesting!! Didnt even make it to the body.... lol

Interesting you should say that. Just the other day over at sebsports I was looking at a chassis from a patrol. It's noticeably more beefy than the 80 series chassis that I played with. So it wouldn't surprise me at all that they had started from a patrol chassis.

 

[Bripars40]

I found it fascinating.
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Someone had lavished money on it. The construction was top-notch, but the overall effect in person was the ugliest thing I have ever seen on four wheels. Just awful. And it was BIG. I can only imagine that the project was undertaken and completed and then the guy who commissioned it had the same reaction as I did. It looked basically unused.

Hope you all enjoyed some of the stranger things at EA.

Interesting build. That’s a UZ motor…

 

[Broski]

Here are the rest of the photos I took:
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This next photo is of the underside of the hood. Someone spent some time and effort to do this nicely.
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It is a big turbocharger on the thing and big intercooler. The construction quality was good, but the overall impression was just ... I'm kind of speechless.

I don't know if it has gone up for auction yet, but I did just send their customer service an email asking what they will be calling it, and if it will go up on auction. It may already have gone. No idea.

The other thing I will mention is that in person the tube frame with all of its swoops did not look beefy enough for what it is. Maybe I'm wrong but I would not want to depend on it as a roll cage. The whole vehicle is massive.

Your spot on about the roll cage it lacks the necessary triangulation to hold up in any kind of roll over !! and there was nothing right about the front suspension.
I can see why it looked unused it's a rolling deathtrap

The Power Wagon on the other hand was off the charts cool, I would had a hard time walking a way from that.

Thanks for post all the cool rides

 

[svsisu]

Your spot on about the roll cage it lacks the necessary triangulation to hold up in any kind of roll over !! and there was nothing right about the front suspension.
I can see why it looked unused it's a rolling deathtrap

The Power Wagon on the other hand was off the charts cool, I would had a hard time walking a way from that.

Thanks for post all the cool rides

Yes, that Power Wagon!!

 

[John Young]

The auction has been live for a few days now, with a couple of days to go.

The truck has gotten 24 bids and reached a little over 800 USD. But most of the action seems to happen during the last couple of hours. If there is interest, the auction can go very late. If there is a bid within the last four minutes EA extends the auction another 6 minutes, and that can go on, and on, and on.

I will be away on a drive to Muscat, Oman when the auction ends. Looking forward to the end of the saga. I'm leaving this thread and all this up on Mud deliberately, figuring that a bidder might do a little googling and find this thread so they can have information on everything I have been through on this truck. I do believe that the right buyer can sort this out. I'm just too exasperated to continue, and I have a couple of other 80's I need to focus on.

 

[John Young]

The circle is complete. What started at Emirates Auctions, ends at Emirates Auctions.

137 bids over 3 hours. I was into the scotch at the end of it.

This morning I got the email from EA:

Spiritually it is a big, BIG win! (Financially, not so much.)

I bought it at EA for 27K; I bought the parts truck for 15K; there is all the various parts, probably at least another 7.5K And then all the labor. And 4.5K for a letter from Al Futtaim approving the new frame. At LEAST 2K in flatbed charges.

But a great weight has been lifted from my heart.

I figure maybe a 50K AED loss over three and a half years. This works out to only 40 AED per day, or about 10 USD per day, so viewed from that perspective, it was not that expensive a lesson.

Plus I still have the 24 valve turbo charged engine that is going into the Omani truck!

 

[ToyotaMatt]

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