Project SJK: Restoring a Classic Suzuki SJ410k Pickup

Have you ever wanted to do an automotive restoration but simply didn't think you had the skills to do it? Well there's only one way to get experience, and that's by diving in and doing it. That's exactly what Omri Ginzburg did with his Suzuki SJ410k restoration project.

Omri, who lives in Israel, always wanted to restore an older pickup, and this 1984 Suzuki SJ410k (aka a Samurai pickup) fit the bill. The truck had been sitting for 10 years and the owner had sold plenty of parts from the truck through the years, so it wasn't exactly complete, either. But what Omri loved about it was that it was completely original. No one changed a thing over the years. In fact, there was even an original working built-in Suzuki FM radio with the truck.

Like many of us, Omri had never actually done a vehicle restoration, so if he wanted to restore this Suzuki, he'd need to learn how. He read guides, taught himself how to weld, and watched a lot of YouTube videos. It would've been easy (but expensive) to have someone else do the work. It would also have been just as easy not to do the restoration. But Omri committed. He figured the project would take a year. It took three. In fact, it took one year to just remove all the bolts.

"[There] were many times I wanted to give up and sell it," he said, "[but] I think that fulfilling such a dream, restoring the car along is priceless."

He documented the entire restoration with 7,457 photos, which he turned into the time-lapse video below. The little Suzuki turned out awesome. And it's that kind of drive and dedication—the commitment—that can make a project car so incredibly rewarding. And hats off to Omri for taking the bull by the horns and learning how to do all this work himself, even if it took longer than expected.

You can check out Omri's website over at projectSJK.com.