Convergent evolution is a well-known concept in biology, where organisms starting from different points seem to arrive at the same general design for living. It’s why there’re so many crabs. This happens all the time in the automotive world, too — ever see an early ‘80s Volkswagen Golf, Dodge Omni, and Ford Fiesta next to one another? Sometimes, though, when a vehicle’s main point is how “different” it looks, it’s fun to realize how nothing is ever as new as you think. Like the Tesla Cybertruck and how it hauls an ATV.
The car in that picture up there is a 1971 Ford concept called the Mercury Montego Sportshauler, and it was built on a Ford Ranchero chassis, but with a very modified Montego body.
The dramatically-raked fastback design allowed for a decent-sized load bed, which, for this concept, housed what looks to be a slightly-customized Amphicat, a little 6x6 off-road machine made famous because a group of terrifying animal mascots who played music called the Banana Splits drove around in them:
Okay, enough being alarmed by the monsters in the 6x6s. It’s just interesting to note that the Cybertruck, while its design is absolutely quite radical, is really not unheard of, not by a long shot.
In fact, we see this same sort of low fastback capable of hiding a small off-road vehicle and with a ramp at least one more time after the Montego Sportshauler and before the Cybertruck, in a 1978 issue of Penthouse:
That top drawing was from Curtis Brubaker, designer of the famed Brubaker Box, and I mentioned it before in my breakdown of the Cybertruck design, because, holy crap, it’s the same idea.
But it looks like this old Ford concept beat everyone. So far, none of these vehicles has made it into production, but the Cybertruck is at least planned to, at some point in the nearish future.
Perhaps all this wedge-hauling-an-ATV idea really needed was an electric drivetrain and an extra pair of doors to finally make that leap into mass production? I guess we’ll find out, or I at least hope we will, for the sake of all those people who plonked down Cybertruck deposits.
(thanks, Hans!)