Even if you’re not a fan of the foreign makes, you have to give them credit: they experimented with some off-beat models over the years. The Subaru Brat has always been a vehicle I’d like to own for at least a little while, just to see if these pickups with jump seats are as fun as they look. Two examples are available here on craigslist for $1,595 as a package deal, which seems like a bargain to me. There’s bound to be some rust on Japanese cars of this era, but between the two, it looks like you’d be able to build a solid example. Although they are missing the rear jump seats, I know where an example is hiding in the woods with the plastic buckets intact if you want to tackle this project. Does anyone have any experience owning or restoring these old-school 4WD trucks?
I think you’d really love them to try to make 1 out of the 2. Both look really ruff but the white one a better place to start.
Wow, I like the plaid seats in the white one… ^_^
As a truck and 4X4 lover this deal to me would be a complete waste of time unless you just had to have a Subaru Brat. I just don’t see any real potential for all the effort I would have to put in to the project.
I love them too, but I think there are better examples out there to start with. Fyi, they had rear seats to get around the import taxes on small pickups. They were considered a passenger car. I always laughed at the later models with seat belts in the back.
Below is the link that tells the story of the one President Reagen owned:
http://jalopnik.com/5877037/how-ronald-reagan-became-a-secret-subaru-test-driver
We (me and a few buddies pooled our $$ and paid a guy $200 for one). We got it running and put some mud tires on it. Spent many many hours driving through the pastures hunting rabbits out of it. It was pretty unstoppable for what it was and light enough for us to push and pull it out on the occasions it did get stuck. That little car/truck was a rolling mish-mash of welded on “accessories” we added to make what we did easier. It was a lot of fun and we got our money out of it tenfold.
I had two Subaru Brats, with multiple Subaru station wagons (along with an assortment of Landcrusiers, trucks and a Willy’s pick-up, tractors and bulldozer) some 35 years ago on my farm in the mountains of southern West Virginia. They were great, fun fantastic light little vehicles. Everyone immediately took the seats out–what a joke they were but were installed by the manufacturer to meet some federal regulation at the time.
They are almost overloaded with a couple a bales of hay, but they would go anywhere and as long as the snow wasn’t higher then the frame they’d go anywhere you asked. If you got stuck on a rock they were light enough that a couple of guys could move them. Not overly powerful and pretty basic, not too fancy for sure. Any I’ve seen lately seem to be well rusted but those pancake engines ran and ran with very little problems, except for the constant velocity joints which seem replacing all the time. My first brand new Subaru station wagon cost exactly $4,000. And they’d last about two years in the rugged Appalachians before it was time to replace them with a new one. Subaru makes a fantastic vehicle–ahead of their time way back when.
Have two good jump seats $50 each plus shipping from Wi —
Here in AUstralia, these things were called the Subaru Brumby. Of course, it couldn’t be called the equivalent in the USA as your wild horse is obviously known as a *…..
:)
I dreamed of having one of these things when I was younger but couldn’t afford one.
My dad had scout 80 we would go wheelin in the pine barrens of jersey, couple of the younger guys in the group bought one when they first came out, and I used to love riding in those damn jump seats