There was a time when a young man’s automotive yearnings wasn’t for big double-cab 4×4 pickups. Like in 1981-1982, when inflation-adjusted gas prices were right at $4/gallon. And the economy was in the tank. And the stock market was at its post-war low. And nobody was building anything, because 30 year mortgage rates were over 16%.
But if you just had to have a pickup that could seat four, Subaru had just the thing for you. Just don’t call it a “pickup”.
Based on the Leone that first appeared in 1971, the BRAT (which ostensibly stands for Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter) made its presence first known for the MY 1978. That was a better year economics-wise, but it was the tail end of the seventies, so perhaps that explains its existence. Are those helmets on the rear passengers? Great; that’ll help in case of a roll-over.
Or more practically-speaking, it was based on necessity, the mother of invention. Subaru wanted in the booming mini-pickup market, but it didn’t have a truck chassis, so it created this little unibody trucklet. And since it couldn’t have its bed added in the US in order to circumvent the 25% “chicken tax” on trucks, Subaru…put two seats in the bed, so that now it was a…passenger car.
Yes, Subaru did the exact opposite of what so many manufacturers have done over the decades to escape or reduce the impact of CAFE regulations, when they turned obvious passenger cars into light trucks. The seventies were a trip, in case you missed them.
Unlike the other Japanese mini-pickup manufacturers that had to go to considerable effort to tool up 4WD versions of their trucklets, Subaru was already there. Subaru pioneered the whole passenger car 4WD thing back in 1975, with their ground-busting 4WD wagon. So making the jump to an AWD mini-pickup wasn’t exactly all that big of a leap. Putting in those rear seats was; crazy, actually.
All the good ads were for the gen1 version it seems. And no helmets here; the sand is soft, you know.
A good number of BRATs have had a seatectomy, in order to maximize cargo room. But where’s the fun in that? Especially in 2021. And it’s certainly no coincidence that I found this one just a few blocks from the UO campus. It’s probably cooler than a Ford Raptor; especially on a Saturday night, cruising for front yard beer-pong contests.
And a CB radio even! Is that the latest social media phenomenon? The Clubhouse of its time? Talking is so much easier than writing.
Power, such as it was, stemmed from the 72 hp pushrod 1.8 L boxer four hung out in front of the front axle center line, in the usual Subaru way. These were rugged little lumps, long before the nasty head gasket gremlins appeared.
This appears to be a step to facilitate entry to the rear cabin, but missing its plastic insert/trim. The gen1 didn’t have that, so presumably Subaru was responding to complaints about difficulty in climbing in? How could that be; we were all so young and limber back then.
Here’s what every young man fancied in 1982, regardless of whether it was on a Firebird or Brat. It’s got to have T-tops, or it’s just not hot.
But are these genuine T-tops, or just two small lift-up panels? Do real T-tops have that solid door section between them and the window opening? Sorry; I’m not an expert on the subject.
The Ford Raptor is the hot vehicle on campus, based on the rapid increase of them in the new car category there. And in a few more years, it will probably be the Hummer EV truck and the Tesla Cybertruck. But in 1982, this was it. And it still is, in its own little way.
Related:
The pickup and dropoff for the special bus to the Hebrew Day School in Kiamesha was in the parking lot of the Liberty Elementary school and I can see with my mind’s eye Menashe Barashi’s BRAT tootling down the long driveway from Main Street, with Miriam (age 8) and her sister Elena (age 7) sitting in the rumble seats in back.
In midwinter.
This morning, my mother informed me that the air temperature on the deck was fourteen degrees, so figure with the wind chill from driving at thirty miles an hour down the Aden Road?
Man that car looked dirty after a couple of years…
Man, this tripped me up to read being from Swan Lake myself (though probably way too young to have ever witnessed the Barashi’s Brat) thanks for sharing that interesting memory!
I have never seen a T-Top on a Subaru BRAT and I have never seen a T-Top with a window rail. I thinks that’s an aftermarket T-Top
We caught another a few years back, while under snow the setup looks identical, almost certainly factory.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/uncategorized/cc-outtake-1983-subaru-brat-a-bright-star-on-a-gloomy-day/
What a great find. The original rear seats, and a CB. Who would use either one these days? I don’t imagine police officers would look kindly on transporting passengers in the back, and there’s always the weather.
These came out around the time I got my license, and I remember thinking how cool they must be. With 4WD and seats in the back, it could have been a great teen party-mobile for a small group. It’s probably for the best that I didn’t have the money to get one back then.
The rear seats in the Brat had seatbelts. As long as passengers are wearing them the cops shouldn’t have an issue. It’s still safer than being a passenger on a motorcycle.
Great fun, the capacity was five people, with three in the back. For those in the back, army coats, leather bomber hats with the ear covers and wooly on the insides, and goggles.
The people in the back were tasked with jumping out and doing the pushing and tugging, when the BRAT got stuck or tippy while up 4-wheeling in the hills.
On the streets, mugging at the other drivers, especially while dressed in the helmets and goggles, was another task for those in the back.
All great fun for that short period of time between getting one’s license and going off to college.
I think the kick-step may just have been Subaru being Subaru. They also introduced a central headlight, which was probably illegal in many states, but looked fun and distinctive in TV commercials. Their little 4WD cars and BRATs looked like fun no matter what they were doing, and their marketing appealed to people who wanted more fun in their lives.
I saw a 1974 Subaru print ad the other day. It was all about how their Quadrozontal engine gave their cars an edge. Quad because they had four cylinders. Ro for hydrogen, denoting water cooling. Zontal because the cylinders were horizontally opposed. They used to be a characterful company with quirky ideas, which was nice.
Man those things look cool. I’ll settle for an El Camino, but a Brat is what I really want!
A friend of mine, who grew up in a Mercedes family, got a blue ‘67 Chevelle 4 door as his first car. I didn’t really get it, neither fast nor fuel-efficient, and handling was awful, but at least it could haul a bunch of us around. A few years later he bought his first new car, a blue Brat, very similar to this one. That choice REALLY surprised me. With 40 years hindsight, it now seems pretty cool. I think about every time our neighborhood Baja drives by our house. But I haven’t seen a Brat in a while.
I remember these back in college: 1981-82. Roommate of a friend of mine had one of these. The rumble seats were intriguing. What was mind blowing to me in 1981 was not that it was 4WD, but in 4×2 mode it was FWD. He had it decked out in Hella lamps on the front bumper.
For a moment I thought this BRAT was a refugee of the Inner Sunset/Mt. Parnassus area of SF (where UCSF main campus is) because that area was a “J” sticker, worse was you had to be registered in CA (I was out of state for my year at UCSF)to get one so I had to park 3 blocks away on street. That was 1990, parking likely hasn’t improved.
I started college in 1983 and recall these well from advertising that targeted my demographic, but very rarely ever saw these. I though the concept was cool, but it would have been a lot easier to find an El Camino. The few Subies I saw on campus were the occasional sedan or wagon.
I found a website that purports to have sales figures for the Brat, Carsalesbase.com. The “hot” years were ’78 and ’79 with about 23,000 sold, sales tanked in 1980 with the economy, and never recovered, stuck at about 5,000 a year until the end. The car market recovered in 1983, the year after Chevy introduced the S-10 and the same year the Ford Ranger was introduced.
The trucklet that likely had GM and Ford worried was the 1979 and up Datsun / Nissan 720. That was hot on my campus and was certainly a leader in moving my campus away from overall dominance by GM A / G bodies.
The most famous Brat owner was a 70 year old California guy……
HaHa! Looks like that one lost its rear seats, which is surprising as it would be an ideal place for Secret Service to sit.
I always got a kick out of the handle bars for the rear passengers.
A great trivia question is “Who was the only US President to have owned a Subaru?” Few people would guess Reagan.
I believe the Young America’s Foundation (which owns the Reagan Ranch now) was able to buy and restore Reagan’s Brat. It would be high on my list of famous cars to visit if I’m ever out that way.
The question is, did Reagan actually “own” the BRAT? It was purportedly a gift from Subaru, which may only have been legal if it was a test vehicle or otherwise written off as having no value. Or perhaps title stayed with Subaru/Fuji. And since Reagan only used it on his ranch, he didn’t need to register it. So perhaps he never legally owned it. In the fictionalized movie about Barack and Michelle Obama’s courtship, the Obama character drove a ratty Datsun 210, stick shift … if historically accurate, he might be the only President to have actually owned a Japanese car.
From what I know, his was a ’78, a year when he was between being governor or President, so being an office holder would not have been an issue.
He was just another California early adopter of Japanese cars!
My roommate had one in the mid-80s.
I remember jump starting it in the Winter and shooing away a cat that decided the warm engine was a nice place to sleep, but otherwise it was a reliable vehicle. She cleaned houses in the mountains for a living and 4WD was essential. Slow, but it sure handled the snow.
The T-tops here were actually a factory feature on some Brats for a while. They were called a “Halo Twin Roof” and if my memory serves me correctly, they were standard on GL Brats for several years in the mid-80s… I’m guessing starting in 1982.
Here’s another image showing the Halo Twin Roof — this one from a 1982 BRAT ad:
Ahhh-Ruth Gordon…
She uttered one of my favorite lines in ‘Any Which Way but Loose’:
“….ate my gawd damn Oreos!”
(*kudos to Subaru for having her as a spokesperson back in the day)
In Australia this model was called the ‘Brumby’, which is an Australian term for wild horse. We didn’t have the issues witha ‘chicken tax’, so they were never fitted with the rear seats. Some did astronomical milages, and you still see them from time to time.
And yes, the T-Tops were a factory option here as well.
I still occasionally see one around my town. No T-tops, just the basic beige Brumby with as bull bar – because it’s kangaroo country around here.
That would have been the perfect Ute for me. Fuel efficient, reliable and able to haul my dirt bike to the woods and later haul my possessions back from college at the end of each year. I later joined the Cult of Subaru and bought five in a row from them.
True confession: As a 53 year old American male, I have never owned anything that could be called a truck. Shocking though that may seem in this day and age.
The Brat and the Dodge Rampage are the only two “trucks” that have ever really tempted me. I guess I missed my window at this point.
Good call on what would seem to be the BRAT’s only competition, the Dodge Rampage and Plymouth Scamp. I might even go so far as to suggest that the whole idea of the Rampage/Scamp was influenced by the BRAT’s initial, relatively decent sales ‘success’. Chrysler (Iacocca) got the Rampage/Scamp into the Omni 024/Charger/Horizon TC3 pipeline, only to see BRAT sales fall off a cliff by the time the Rampage made it into showrooms.
Can’t say I’m much of a fan of the Rampage, but the BRAT is one of those quirky, goofy vehicles that I can easily see young people fawning over, maybe even today. In fact, those generally useless rear seats were probably a big factor in winning over that particular demographic. The rear seats, plus the AWD capability, definitely puts the BRAT ahead of the Rampage.
Even those ‘hatch’ t-tops and bedside step all fall into the ‘dare-to-be-different’ Subaru ethos that would appeal to someone’s individualistic tastes.
The VW pickup would have to be included in that competition. The Rampage/Scamp and the VW were front wheel drive only, so the Subaru had no direct competition.
Well it may not be too late, if you are alright with more than a regular cab. Ford is bringing out the Maverick soon if you want 4 full doors. https://fordauthority.com/?s=maverick Hyundai is supposedly finally going to bring out the Santa Cruz for 2022 also and it will supposedly be an extended cab.
What I can’t figure out is why no one has come out with a smaller Chevy Avalanche-type vehicle with its novel ‘mid-gate’ that allowed the pickup bed to expand into the rear seat area. That was the defining feature of the Avalanche and would seem to be perfect for a smaller pickup.
In the US there’s very little reason for a private buyer of a new truck not to simply buy a truck with the bed size they want.
The Subaru Baja had a removable panel in the same place as well. It was not nearly full width but did allow something like sticks of lumber to pass through.
I bet GM probably has some patents that are still in effect that are preventing other mfgs from considering it. The sales trajectory of the original probably keeps GM from bringing out another. It started out pretty strong but sales tapered off pretty quickly and then really didn’t recover after 2009.
Of course the market has changed considerably in recent years and maybe it would have a higher take rate in a smaller version.
I literally just looked out the window and saw an Avalanche pulling an enclosed utility trailer.
The mitigate design is aimed at a tiny market, like the Chevy Volt: people who have excuses for not buying a truck.
Damn auto correct.
…the stock market was at an all-time inflation-adjusted low; yes 66% lower than 1932. didn’t sound quite right. WSJ:
That didn’t sound right to me too, when I Googled it and found a chart. But yes, it’s quite wrong.
DJI on 7/8/32: 41.55
DJI on 8/12/82: 777
Inflation adjusted to 2020, the 1932 number = 795, and the 1982 = 2112.
I will amend the text; thanks!
Your point is still valid. 1982 DOW did get close to its 1948 lows on an inflation adjusted basis. I remember my grandfather wasn’t real happy about that.
My grandparents had two Subaru hatchbacks in the 80s, I wouldn’t mind having one of these, but I haven’t seen one in years.
I never quite got why this wasn’t just classified as a passenger car in the first place, being derived from the DL/GL hatchback.
Really? Looks a bit too much like a pickup, I’m afraid. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
And don’t forget Joy’s Brat from My Name Is Earl.
El Subarino!