We’ve been talking a lot about the brutality and madness of modern truck design here this week, so when what is in many ways the polar opposite of such design pops up on Craigslist, I suppose it’s my duty to make you aware. So that’s what I’m doing. If you want the antimatter to modern truck design’s matter, here it is, for sale in Orem, Washington.
Yes, this strange little Beetle-based pickup truck thing, despite having 100 percent more grille than a normal Beetle (in that this one seems to have a likely useless grille, taken from some Mercedes) is about as far from the intimidation-as-design concept of today’s pickup trucks as you can get.
This little thing is strangely charming, even if, as a truck, it doesn’t seem all that useful. The rear of the Bug’s body, from the B-pillar back, has been chopped off and replaced with a stumpy truck bed, and even that bed is sort of compromised, since the upright-fan 1600cc engine takes up the rear half, making a sort of half truck bed/half flat bed sort of thing.
I’m sure if you were determined, you could haul some things there? Sure, why not?
What I am most impressed by is how well the front re-styling works. The Mercedes-Benz grille on the truncated hood and the up-angled fenders with their higher-than-usual mounted headlights actually makes an oddly appealing face for the car, one that feels quite different from the 1962 Beetle this thing started life as.
It reminds me a bit of a DKW, maybe? It’s like a German car from some alternate reality, maybe called a Donker Vogel 1500 or something like that.
The interior is actually pretty nice on this, with what looks like velour upholstery and everything done up in that brownish/bronzeish color of the whole car.
This thing is really charming, in its own puzzling way. I’d like it if someone important drove this thing, like a senator or a respected scientist or economist or something. Someone who, when you told someone this was their car, would remain shocked and confused the whole rest of the day.
It’s only about four grand! One of you kooks should snatch this thing up!
(Thanks to the Lemons Rally FB page, where I saw this!)