The passenger car-based mini pickup niche is as old as as the Crosley Roadside, if not older yet. It’s also a highly ephemeral one, that seemed to repeatedly draw car makers to it like moths to the flame. And the results are about the same: here today; gone tomorrow. 
If we exclude the quite compact early sixties Falcon Ranchero, then the mini-revival started with the 1978 Subaru Brat (above). Now that really was conceived of as more of an odd-ball 4WD SAV (sports activity vehicle) with its rear-facing seats (to get around the chicken tax) than even any pretense of serious load carrying potential, although this one was obviously put to hard work. But it caught VW’s eye, or maybe they were already experimenting with Golf-based trucks when the little Brat appeared. In any case, VW thought there was potential in convincing American pickup drivers to squeeze their beef-fed bods into a half-Rabbit sized cab.
The resulting VW Rabbit pickup appeared in 1979, built at VW’s new Westmoreland PA plant. It appeared at the right time, just before the second big energy crisis, and the diesel version is a true cult mobile. But it never caught on with the real pickup crowd, and its body dies were were sent to (former) Yugoslavia, where it became the VW Caddy. And as of 2006, they were still being built in South Africa. And the Caddy-class of light FWD pickups has become a global phenomena, except here.
Meanwhile, Chrysler must have thought that VW was on to a hot new trend, and developed this Rampage to meet that great unmet demand. It’s based on the Horizon/Omni twins, which coincidentally were heavily influenced by the Rabbit/Golf to start with. But instead of using the Omnirizon sedan sheet metal, Chrysler decided to go the sporty direction, and use the front end of the coupe versions, the Dodge 024 (later Charger) and the Plymouth TC3 (later Turismo).
The Rampage appeared as a 1982 model, and a presumably reluctant Plymouth clone named Scamp made a one-year only appearance in 1983. And the wild Rampage lasted one year longer, through 1984. Rampages are not exactly common anymore, but the Scamp is a true rarity these days.
Even though it had the sport front end of the 024/Charger, the Rampage could be a practical little hauler, like this one. It was rated for 1145 lbs, making it a legitimate half-tonner. It sat on an extended wheelbase, with a heavier rear axle. Of course, a heavy load in a FWD truck has its inherent limitations. Power was the ubiquitous 2.2 liter K-car four.
This Rampage looks like it’s found an appreciative long-term owner, who favors the practical side of its personality. I’ve never seen a Rampage with these “saddle bags” before. And it likes to hang around in this parking lot with the big boy pickups.
The other extreme side to the Rampages’ personality was the Shelby Rampage, which was actually not built by Chrysler, but by a dealership. All of 218 were built. Of course, the FWD car-based pickup refuses to die, and after Honda jumped in with their Ridgeline, Chrysler showed the Dodge Rampage concept in 2006. Not that there’s anything really mini about these latest exercises.
Car based pickups utes have been part of the landscape here since Lew Brandt drew up the first one in 1934 both in factory and backyard built guises, not the Rampage though Chrysler vanished from this part of the world in the late 70s and VW never really had a great presence post beetle until lately but every other type of ute has landed here from everywhere.
There is an ’84 or so Rampage 2.2, in silver with black stripes, on my walking route. As soon as we walked by it the first time, my wife asked “You want it, don’t you?” Sadly, I kind of do!
Sounds like the one that showed up at the Gilmore’s Mopar show last summer. As I was eastbound on 94 after the show, it blew past me.
Another look.
Yup, it’s an 84
Rather drab interior tho.
The Scamp at the show was a bit flashier.
A little brighter inside too.
From that angle, it looks like an EXP!
Ooh. I had the Turismo 2.2, (Sadly I lost the few photos I ever took at some point, ) but I actually loved that car. Two tone silver/grey with the dark red decals and blacked out headlight bezels, (Hard to even find an example on like Google Images in that combination.) Sadly, his days were numbered due to unibody cancer, but a lot of spirit for a practical car. 🙂 Bet the Rampage version could be fun. 🙂
A really nice idea for most people who buy pickups (and never haul anything heavier than the load of spring mulch from Home Depot), but doesn’t fit the American image of a pickup. So instead, the market sells overly large, overly tall, relative gas hogs to be used twice a year to haul a load that’s 10% of the pickup’s capacity.
Another one of those wonderful idiocies of the American auto market.
“overly large, overly tall”
It’s like building in a big city, where the only direction one can go to expand is up. My 60s pickup is dwarfed by the new luxury pickups.
Everything is taller. My dad has a ’93 Jeep Grand Cherokee that I drove yesterday. I was shocked by how all the mid-sized sport utes towered over it.
Chuck wrote: ““overly large, overly tall”
Everything is taller. My dad has a ’93 Jeep Grand Cherokee that I drove yesterday. I was shocked by how all the mid-sized sport utes towered over it.”
And yet a satisfactory reason for this
“height war” of the last 15 or so model
years has never been given – on CC,
TTAC, or any other online source.
My theory is based on the proven fact
that both adult men and women are
on average 1″ taller than 50 years ago.
Being somewhat… 19th century in stature (5’9″) I would feel silly driving around in one of the new dreadnoughts, but I do appreciate a little height when navigating the rivers of aggressive American iron.
Let’s face it, driving these days ain’t what it used to be – traffic is a congested mess and it’s full of jerky drivers. I think the oversized cars represent an effort to get above the fray. I would love to have a ’64 MGB but the thought of dealing with every other jerk and his brother tailgating me with his high beams at my eye level is pretty unappealing.
Not bad, Chuck! The current U.S. male avg is 5’10”. I was 5’8″ in my 20s but have since lost half an inch. Prince was 5’2″ and now his family are fighting over his $millions. 😮
Maybe, IRescueTVs. I’d cite the aging of the Boomers (a large segment of the buyer-base) and the resulting premium placed on ease-of-ingress/egress. Couple that with the rise of “a high driving position” as a selling-point, and everything goes up, up, up.
The height growth has turned me off of a lot of cars that I’d otherwise consider attractive designs, Late model Camaro-Mustang-Challengers for example would all look better of there was a 2-3″ sectioning of the bodies.
I’m barely 5′ 9″ if I’m wearing workboots though, so I’m an exception to the human height average growths (my Dad is 6’3″, and his Dad is the same). I fit into pretty much every car in the “space inefficient” era perfectly, which I can’t complain about 🙂
XR7: So I’m not the only guy who didn’t “measure
up” to his forefathers? My gramps was even 6′
and my dad 5’11”. I peaked at 5’8″
One inch more height means we need cars a foot or two taller? I doubt that. I blame a combination of “bigger is better” thinking and a fear factor brought on by so many bulked up and lifted trucks and “light” trucks.
John McMillin:
Remember something called deviation, or
variance. Back when 5’8″ was the norm,
you might have seen 4′ of variation around
that. At 5’10”, that could go 6″ either way.
Must account for that in design.
Comparing Apples to Impalas, a 2014
Impala was 58″ tall, about 4″ taller than
a ’64 – significant, but not nearly a “foot”
taller! 🙂
One of these days I’ll systematically compare dimensions across eras to see how much things have changed. In the meantime, one piece of conjecture I’ll offer is that the 60s thru 80s were somewhat of an anomaly in the low height of cars. Did the low seating of so many cars in that era, which made you drive with your legs straight out in front of you, really make sense? Is this really a natural position for the average person to effectively operate 2-ton piece of equipment at 60mph? Sure, a lower center of gravity helps handling, but now that an average car can outhandle almost any car from that era, we’re perhaps designing cars with a height that actually makes sense—easier to get in and out of, easier to see out of, more natural seating height, etc.
There no doubt are a lot of other factors, but I suspect they are secondary to this.
“My 60s pickup is dwarfed by the new luxury pickups.”
It’s dwarfed by new non-luxury pickups too; not sure why the “luxury” qualifier had to be made. And then, it’s smaller in length and height–width has remained essentially the same (78-80″) on all full-size pickups since the early ’60s.
These are some of the best-looking pickups ever made, in my opinion.
Car-based pickups, and the reasons people bought them, have long fascinated me.
The real outlier in this class is the El Camino, which sold nearly 1 million copies over 30 years. For some reason, the El Camino had a combination of attributes (part utility, but probably more an unquantifiable aura of coolness) that made for enduring appeal.
Vehicles like the Rampage and the Rabbit pickup have an eccentric appeal to them that’s very different from the appeal of Rancheros and El Caminos. But the entire class has an individuality all to itself. And I wonder if in 30 years from know, people will look at vehicles like the Honda Ridgeline or the Explorer Sport Trac in the same manner? After all, those are a modern interpretation of the same concept.
The Sport Trac was both a true pickup and an SUT (an SUV with a bed).
The first-gen Explorer Sport Trac was essentially the crew cab Ranger we never got. The normal Explorer SUV was built on a modified Ranger platform from 1991-2001, but the Sport Trac went one step further and used the same 126″ WB as the SuperCab Ranger as well as the same rear axle setup (SRA) and powertrain (4.0L V6 mated to the M5OD or 5R55E transmissions), as well as some interior pieces. At 206″ OAL, it was a compact pickup (with a seperate, removable bed) that just happened to look a little non-conventional.
The second-gen Sport Trac (note the dropping of “Explorer”) was built on the new mid-size Explorer platform, with IRS and available 4.6L V8. The bed may still be removable (probably is), but the move from SRA to IRS and from the Ranger chassis to a brand-new Explorer chassis is in my book what makes the second-gen an SUT rather than a pickup.
I dare say the Rampage was part “can’t afford an El Camino” due to being based on a coupe rather than the related sedan, whereas the Rabbit would be more often a deliberate choice to go small or thrifty
Small utes have been built from the 1930s too, even though this Ford is late-40s.
I really liked these, but then I really liked the TC3/024 that they were based on.
Let’s not forget the original passenger car-based pickup. 🙂
I saw this posted on Bring a Trailer this morning. Classy.
http://bringatrailer.com/2016/05/13/rare-factory-coupe-pick-up-1936-chevrolet-standard/
There is a very rough four headlight version of these, (earlier model year?) That I still lsee driving by all the time. Have always loved these crucks
The two headlight front end is the earlier of the two. The two-door L-bodies switched to the four headlight front end for the 1984 model year, which was the Rampage’s last year (the L-body coupes, by then known as the Dodge Charger and Plymouth Turismo, remained in production through 1987).
One of the issues with these is that a big full-frame pickup can do a LOT of things a big BOF SUV can’t (tow a fifth-wheel trailer, carry livestock in muddy environments etc), but a small FWD car-platform pickup can do relatively few things a small hatchback or wagon can’t.
There’s an 84 Rampage for sale (or there was until recently) on Craigslist in south Georgia. It’s “dark slate grey”, with a greyish interior, and automatic transmission. Even as a used car, the price seems reasonable, but I’m not sure about (the admittedly fairly reliable) automatic in a small vehicle. These always seem to be a drag on performance.
I wonder if these could make a comeback now that the U.S. has (apparently) embraced small vans.
At the time, the 2.2 had enough power to make the automatic viable. 84 hp and a 3-speed automatic isn’t going to win many races today though.
I’ve always admired these little haulers, but most people cry fowl about a front wheel drive pickup. For a light duty pickup I think front wheel drive is just fine since they are usually driven empty or lightly loaded anyway.
Usually they’d cry foul, unless it’s meant to be a pun based on the Chicken Tax.
No pun. I goofed the spelling, but your take on it is pretty funny.
I still think there’s a market for pickups like the Ridgeline but Honda is the only one trying and they keep missing the mark. The 2017 is still odd looking, only this time in a soccer mom way. The bed is shallow, towing isn’t quite enough, the price is high and there is only one cab/engine configuration.
Hyundai came out with the Santa Cruz concept but that’s a miss as well. Looks great but too small to be practical.
Someday I think somebody will get it right and the segment will take off. The Ridgeline is too good of an all-around vehicle to ignore in my opinion. With a few changes it could be a great little truck, one that I’d happily trade in my F-150 for.
The bed on the Ridgeline is deeper than it appears–there’s under-bed storage. And I wouldn’t call it “little”–it’s actually as wide as any full-size pickup (78″), even though it is much shorter.
Yes, there is the trunk, but that requires them to sandwich the spare between the axle and bed which makes the main cargo bed very shallow. While that trunk can be useful, I believe the vast majority of truck buyers would rather have a deeper bed and lower load height.
And yeah by little I didn’t mean like this Rampage, but rather compared to a full size. I really like the size of it.
Pic below:
When I see that bed I think I can’t help but think how I couldn’t fit a lot of common items in it that I can in my current truck under a tonneau cover. Cooler, bikes, etc. Sure I could put the cooler in the trunk, but then I can’t access it when other stuff is in the bed. Yeah I can buy a different cooler I suppose, but there will be a lot of objects too tall for it.
The trunk is the cooler. There’s even a drain plug. (But yes, it would be a pain to have to take everything out of the bed to get to the spare tire.)
That’s a bit of a gimmick…it’s not insulated, and it’s pretty large. Then you have to dry it out when you’re done.
Access to the spare tire doesn’t bother me that much. Heck, even with a bed full of stuff it couldn’t be as bad as my Town & Country. I’d just rather have the bed depth.
Out of curiosity I looked up the cargo volume in cubic feet
Ridgeline
Bed: 33.9
Trunk: 7.3
Total: 41.2
Colorado Crew Short Bed: 41.3
Colorado Crew Long Bed: 49.9
F-150 Supercrew Short Bed: 55.4
Looks like a mistake to me. Put the spare behind the rear axle and lower the bed floor. There would still be some additional ‘trunk’ storage for infrequently-accessed things.
By far my favorite car-based pickup concept:
With a 6.9 , no less. Zounds!
Looks like an eighties El Camino rear window.
In order for a truly compact pickup to meet CAFE regs, it would have to be on a FWD unibody platform. And that’s okay–most of the utility of such a trucklet would come from its open bed with the ability to haul oversized items, rather than any monstrous payload or towing capacities.
One of the guys involved in making these, maybe Iaccoca or Bob Lutz, said that once all the pool cleaners had one, the market was saturated.
I think the fact that it was FWD was one of the reasons that killed interest in the Rampage. FWD was still “new” to the American public and seemed still had not caught on at that time period
Another reason that these types of vehicles fail is because they are unibody vehicles. In the truck world that seems to have a stigma attached to it. In the early 1960’s, Ford offered a unibody F series pickup truck. it bombed.
The Ford ‘unibody’ pickup from 1961 – 1963 was not a true unibody. The cab and bed were joined, without a gap, but there was still the same frame underneath.
I don’t mind small trucks, but I’d rather mine be truck based.
“We Like Our Pickups Extra Large”
Indeed, like a middle school bully who encounters his first high school bully, even my humongous 18.5 foot long, 70.1 inch tall, 74.6 inch wide Macho Taco ™ is humbled by an ordinary EcoBoosted F-150.
Picture taken a few days ago at a supermarket lot in Bernardsville NJ.
at least I have the required 4X4 mud flaps.
Maybe, soon, even a pair of Yosemite Sams
i like these and saw one in the metal just last summer here in minnesota. not a cream puff but clearly not dd either.
no wonder i like these as i have been attracted to all sorts of small odd ball vehicles in my lifetime. vw type 3 wagons, golf pickups, wagons in general, etc. somehow they seem to be better thought out when it comes to space utilization.
i have no need for a really large pickup.
saw a commercial not too long ago for a new pickup – i forget the make. the fellow tries to go hunting with all his buddies. they have new pickups and he has to try to make do with a sedan. he gets stuck and they all make fun of him. next time he has a new pickup and then they are clearly all equal again.
i saw that commercial once and thought to myself that no one needs friends like that. if it were me i would be hunting alone.
My grandfather bought one of these Rampages, couldn’t believe its inability to climb a hill, and quickly traded it on a Ford Ranger. To this day, my grandmother steadfastly refuses to buy any car with fewer than six cylinders because of that Rampage.
Rampage & VW pickup: logical
Current pickups: bizzare
If one of these has a heavy load on less than stable pavement the ride can get downright scary. That was brought to my attention when I loaded the trunk of my Honda Accord and took off right after a rain several years ago. Losing traction in all the puddles was really scary. Light towing would be another example IMO.
Actually, I could probably function pretty well with a truck like this today. Hardbodies and S-10s were my meat and potatoes till I retired.
RWD can get a bit dicey when you unload the front too. I overloaded my ramcharger a few times and the front end got scary light and handling was freighting.
I’ve found myself liking these lately, I encountered my first rampage in the flesh last summer at a local junkyard and for whatever reason in person the whole package made total sense to me.
Oddly I never thought the 024/Charger looked any good, the roofline was terrible, truckating it solved all.
Here in Canada there were a number of Rampages outfitted in “DirectConnection” guise with a roof air deflector and lots of graphics.
That is just too cool!! I ‘d love to be able to find those pieces to grace a suitably restored Rampage…you wouldn’t meet yourself at Chrome & Coffee for sure!! 🙂
I’v e seen a few direct connects here in the states too. Pretty cool. About 10 years ago I saw one at a car show that had a complete Shelby Daytona driveline installed by a local mopar tech. When he passed away his wife sold it to the fellow at the car show. It was in beautiful shape as apparently he only used it to drive to Home Depot. He offered to sell it me for around 4k at the time I really wish I had the money then.
I was immediately drawn to the future CC Dakota R/T sitting in the background.
When I saw the Rampage concept mentioned at the end of the article, I inmediately thought of the new Fiat Toro. It looks like Dodge would already have the right platform for the Rampage concept. At least in South America, FWD car-based pickups are very popular and make sense to a lot of people.
So how close to the max load do you think that pair of (unloaded) “saddlebags” get? I loved these when they came out, but you could get a lot more carrying capacity and overall power with any of the compact pickups on the market.
Still, if you want to haul a couple of lawnmowers and some garden tools around, this is the ideal size.
There’s a guy near where I live that keeps a ’78 El Camino and a ’82 Rampage in an abandoned gas station lot he owns. The fiberglass front end of the Rampage is falling off, and I’ve wanted to save it from the guy and add an ’86 Charger front end to it and keep it for myself. Problem is, he’s old and stubborn and refuses to sell it despite the fact that it’s sitting on flats and has weeds growing through the front air dam.
He’s going to fix it someday and besides, it’s worth big money cuz they don’t make em anymore.
Don’t forget the Hudson car based pickups.
My favorite car based pick up is the 77-79 ranchero with thunderbird conversion.
Loving the Ford sourced tail lights.
If I could find one of these (not rusted to death, and ESPECIALLY a Scamp) with a stick, I’d buy it and drive it in a heartbeat.
I don’t need a big pickup, but do occasionally need to haul stuff.
For a front wheel drive pickup 2.2l n/a 5 speed; its been probably the best car/truck I’ve ever owned