Launched in 1966 as Ford's answer to the Jeep CJ and the International Scout, the first-generation Ford Bronco was a square-jawed icon built amid a surging demand for plucky four-wheel drive. Its drivers – largely farmers and hunters, rather than the sort of person who now spends six figures on a meticulously restored example – liked the original’s short wheelbase, simple grille, and round headlights.
Now, US-based manufacturer Massimo Motor is shrinking that idea to roughly the size of a large go-kart. And they’re right, it’s “pure off-road nostalgia.”
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Aesthetically, the Mini Truck carries many of the auto icon’s original hallmarks: a slatted grille between a pair of round headlights; a flat bonnet; and an upright windscreen that stands in proper old-school Bronco fashion, or even like today’s Jimnys.
It costs a modest US$2,999 (~AU$4,500), though the Mini Truck is still just a two-wheel drive, offers just 89mm of ground clearance, and carries 3.8 litres of fuel.
At just over two metres long and barely more than a metre wide, you could conceivably store one of these models in the garden shed or tucked somewhere in the drive – not that this model is entirely road legal, of course. It's designed for fire trails, farm tracks, and a quick lap of the golf course, rather than conquering the Australian Outback. Still, easier to find a park than the original Bronco.
Under the hood, a 125cc air-cooled, four-stroke single-cylinder engine produces 9hp and drives through a three-speed transmission with reverse. Top speed is 45km/h, which sounds painfully slow until you remember the Mini Truck weighs just 167kg dry.
At each corner, Massimo introduces a steel, albeit short, frame and coilover suspension with a transverse swingarm up front and dual coilover swingarms at the rear. Eighteen-inch all-terrain tyres sit on steel wheels, while hydraulic disc brakes handle stopping duties at both ends.
Its short frame does only allow for two seats, but the boot is capacious enough for an overnight bag and an esky, arguably the two most important pieces of equipment required for an Australian expedition of this scale.
There are, naturally, limits to the fantasy. Each Mini Truck is built to order and assembled in Texas, with Massimo only shipping to the lower 48 US states. Sorry, Hawaii. So, getting one of these to Australia in time for summer might be easier said than done.
Also, if your definition of off-roading requires a swag bag and a satellite phone, this probably isn't the answer. It won't tow a boat or cross a continent, nor will it take you and your family’s luggage down the coast.
It may, however, offer something increasingly difficult to buy in an age of computerised vehicles on car-like chassis: an inherent thrill of the off-road adventure, so long as its route is somewhere cruising around the back paddock.