I know there’s a couple of gen1 Brats around, but I could never catch one in town. Eventually, I shot one at a trail head out at the coast, and did a full CC on it. But then this little black Brat passed me on the right (natch), and made a brisk right turn on Willamette. No passengers in the back seat, sadly. Now that would make a good shot. Just in case anyone forgot, those seats are there because it was a way to get around the 25% “Chicken tax”, since there was no way to send these stateside without their integral unibody beds. So turn it into a passenger car!
There he goes, showing of the Subie’s cornering prowess. And it still has the original BRAT stripe and name on its flanks. But the bumper seems to have been replaced by a piece of Schedule 40 PVC sewer pipe. Fitting, somehow.
Not sure those seats would be kosher here we just got em as utes good little bombs in mud but a bit underdone for loadspace and very rust prone hence not many survivors.
They’re not, here, anymore, either.
The seats were to avoid our “Chicken Tax” on imported trucks (defined as two-place utility vehicles). Toyota and others got around it by shipping incompleted trucks, missing beds or important components. The BRAT, having a unitized body, couldn’t do that.
Back in the day, the standards were far different for “multipurpose passenger vehicles” which is what this was classified as.
Ahhhh, the modern-day rumble seat. The seating positions are like a ski-boat. Maybe this car was meant for pulling a couple of skateboarders or rollerbladers at the end of a rope. What – don’t having rear-facing passengers to watch make that perfectly safe?
A former brother-in-law owned a Brat, back in the day. As I recall no one ever wanted to ride in those back seats more than once. He eventually used the “hot wrench” and removed the outside seats to increase room in the bed.
On my WANT list.
The rear seats had groovy hand grips
They look like ejector seats.
You can see them in the first post.
Still some Subaru Brumby’s (as they were called out here) around these days, eg my great uncle has one that is absolutely mint. My grandfathers on the other hand, bought at the same time from the last shipment imported but actually used for work, was dented all over within a year and finally sold 10+ years ago.
Seats ? Puh-leez we kids back in the 60s rode sitting down on the corners of the pickup bed with our arms casually over the side on the way to swim across the small local lake (no lifeguard) . Thank a few idiots and a litigious culture for ending that fun !
+1… I somehow avoided flying out of the bed of my father’s orange ’79 F150 SuperCab. I still remember the interesting look* and sound of the whirling driveshaft at speed. I loved riding back there: just “me and the truck”. No pesky people to deal with.
*peeking through gap between cab and bed.
I remember liking these a lot as a kid when they were new. Sadly, they were already pretty rare by the time I got my license. I think they’ve all rusted away around here, I haven’t seen one in person in years.
This is my Brat. It is a 1980 and I am still restoring it. The rear bumper is a 1/8th inch thick round metal pipe not PVC ; ) It is a blast to drive and it was GREAT to see it posted on the internet. Thank you for the great pics