• Simply called the “Pickup Truck,” this odd-looking contraption is thankfully just a one-off.
• It was made by combining the VW Taigun SUV with the VW Virtus sedan.
• Mechatronics students built the truck and gave it an extra-long rear overhang.

The Amarok isn’t Volkswagen’s sole pickup truck since there’s also a smaller Saveiro in Latin America. The tiny workhorse isn’t sold in India where this contraption was born following nine months of development. It was created by the local Skoda Auto Volkswagen India subsidiary through its Student Car Project backed by the government’s “Skill India” program.

Mechatronics students worked on the diminutive pickup, with guidance from Skoda and VW teams in India. As you can easily tell, the truck wasn’t engineered from scratch since it borrowed many bits and pieces from existing products. It’s actually based on two cars, the Taigun crossover and Virtus sedan. To keep costs in check, the people involved in the project used as many readily available components as possible. Consequently, some compromises had to be made to blend everything together.

However, not everything was taken from those two cars as new parts had to be 3D-printed to merge with borrowed components. To make it look tough, the students added a snorkel, fender flares, and lots of plastic body cladding. In addition, the Pickup Truck rides substantially higher courtesy of a suspension lift and carries an LED light bar on its roof. Elsewhere, it has snazzy body graphics along with chunky tires on what look like beadlock wheels.

Addressing the elephant in the room, that rear overhang isn’t a pretty sight. Because it didn’t start out in life as a pickup, that small bed had to be improvised. It sticks out way more than it should. Pictured below, the Saveiro I mentioned before is also based on a car, but it’s far better executed, without having such an ungainly rear end.

The Pickup Truck is not the only interesting vehicle built by students from the mechatronics course as they also made a four-door convertible last year. That one didn’t make it to production either.

Remember when you would go down to the local arcade and stand in front of a pinball machine for hours? Just endlessly smacking those two little buttons on either side of the machine in hopes of hitting the high score. Pinball machines aren’t as popular as they once were (sadly), but if you long for the days of silver balls bouncing against bumpers, then there’s an amazing retro pinball machine going up for auction soon.

Bonhams is hosting an auction in Knokke-Heist, Le Zoute, France on October 6 that will have this retro Indianapolis 500 pinball machine listed. It’s fully restored, and estimates suggest it will go for anywhere from $6,700 to $10,000. And there’s no reserve.

Bonhams

The pinball machine in question was built by Bally in 1995. Bally started making pinball machines way back in 1932 under the name Ballyhoo, and the company is still around today (although, it’s more in the business of sports entertainment these days than pinball).

Long-time IMS announcer Tom Carnegie actually voiced the game, and the machine measures 70.1 inches high, 55.1 inches long, and 29.5 inches wide; So start finding space in your man cave now. The Internet Pinball Database—a real thing, believe it or not—gives it a “Fun Rating” of 7.9 out of 10.

Bonhams

Bonhams

The auction doesn’t say who restored this vintage machine or when, but it appears to be in pristine, working condition according to the listing. It has retro IndyCar graphics running along the side, a tiny scale-model IndyCar underneath the glass, and fully restored art inside the machine with an IndyCar trophy front and center.

It’s amazing. You need it.