1981 Subaru BRAT. Take That, Chicken Tax!

When I was a kid, I remember seeing this truck with its bizarre plastic jump seats in the bed, and thinking, "They've got to be kidding." Yeah, they actually were kidding. Subaru's expectation was not that Americans were clamoring to ride in hard plastic seats in the back of pickup trucks.

Those seats are back there to beat the Chicken Tax. As we discussed in my post about Volkswagen Type 2 trucks, in 1964 in response to a European tariff on American poultry the US introduced retaliatory tariffs including a 25% tariff on light trucks. By bolting seats in the bed, Subaru was able to classify the BRAT as a passenger car.  By the way, BRAT is an acronym for, "Bi-drive Recreational All-Terrain Transporter."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1966 Ford Ranchero

Among enthusiasts, the Chevy El Camino is the more popular car-truck. But I see a lot of Rancheros in Seattle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1972 Chevrolet El Camino

The classic car-truck is a common site in Seattle, including the El Camino, Ford's Ranchero and the VW Rabbit pickup. I'll also be covering the Subaru BRAT when I spot a good one.

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Ford Ranchero roundup!

It seems like Ford put an awful lot of expense and effort into their car-truck in the 1960s when you consider that it was never built in large numbers, required a lot of parts that weren't applicable to any other model, and that the Ranchero changed a lot from year to year. In fact, the Ranchero was made in 5 different models between 1965 and 1968.

The 1965 Ranchero (first car pictured below) was based on the Falcon compact. In 1966, it was based on the new, larger Falcon and had two models in the same year. The first had the same front clip as the Falcon, and the second had the front clip from the Ford Fairlane. In 1967, the Ranchero was based on the Fairlane (second car pictured below). Then in 1968 it moved to the completely different Torino platform (the third car pictured below is a Torino-based 1970, and the last car is a 1974) before finally moving to the huge LTD platform in 1977 with the final Ranchero being built in 1979.

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