This Custom Nissan Titan Made To Look Like An International Scout Is An Automotive Abomination

If you have the time and the know-how, or more realistically if you have the disposable income, you can do virtually anything with a car. You could turn a MazdaSpeed Protoge into a mini truck, you could V10-swap a Lincoln Continental, or, if you’re a fan of producing automotive abominations, you could fabricate a custom International Harvester Scout II body to fit on a 2016 Nissan Titan XD Pro-4X. If for some sick reason that last option piques your interest, you’re in luck because there’s a custom International Harvester Scout II-bodied 2016 Nissan Titan XD Pro-4X up for auction on Bring A Trailer right now.

It’s a classic case of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” but that didn’t stop someone from producing this motoring monstrosity. It’s even painted green, so it feels very correct to call it a Frankenstein build. It’s primarily built from the donor Titan XD Pro-4X, but it allegedly also has a cab from an actual International Harvester Scout II, and parts from a Ford F-100, a Ford Econoline, a Ford Expedition, and a slew of custom parts. All I can say is wow.

I can’t decide what the worst part is — the uncanny valleyºstyle exterior appearance that is what you’d see if you looked at an International Scout a couple hours after taking a fistful of mushrooms, or the fact that the interior is just the bone stock Titan’s cabin. It’s even still gotten the Nissan badge on the steering wheel.

Whomever decided to build this was not afraid of an intense project. They went so far as to shorten the original Titan chassis by a whopping 46 inches, or nearly four feet. The ad claims that “the cab from an International Harvester Scout II was fitted to a 2016 Nissan Titan XD Pro-4X chassis,” but I struggle to see any authentic Scout looking at the final product. The A-pillars are way too thick to be from an International, the majority of the doors appear to be straight off a Titan, and the entire interior is stock Titan, so I do not see any part that could be from a real International. Maybe the front window line resembles that of a Scout? Though the build diagrams show how the International cab was integrated with the Titan’s, so I could just be too distracted by the rest of the truck’s blasphemous appearance to see the Scout in it. 

The ad states that the windshield is from an F-100, the roof panel is from an Econoline van, and the rear glass is from an Expedition, and all those are visibly true. It retains the Titan’s 5.0-liter Cummins turbodiesel V8 and six-speed automatic transmission, as well as the shift-on-the-fly dual range transfer case and 4WD, which means it should at least be a capable all-terrain vehicle. 

Ultimately it’s not a bad build. In fact the fabrication work looks great, the panel fitment looks remarkably consistent, and it doesn’t look like an amateur job. I just don’t understand why anyone would choose to do this. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.