Hyundai's Santa Cruz is the latest in a long line of car-truck mash-ups

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When Hyundai recently unveiled its Santa Cruz “Sport Adventure Vehicle,” as the company dubbed it, some truck fans didn’t take it very well . And they took it even worse when Hyundai made some comparisons to the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier.

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A four-foot bed? All-wheel-drive instead of 4×4? Based on a Tucson, for heaven’s sake? Some people are going bonkers because, in addition to calling it a crossover, Hyundai is also calling it a truck. A truck? A truck?

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Hyundai's Santa Cruz is the latest in a long line of car-truck mash-ups Back to video

Our take on it is “Calm down.” We can’t wait to get our hands on this thing, because it’s always so cool to drive something new. It’s likely going to work very well for people who only need something that’s “Truck Lite.” And even if Hyundai sells a million of these, your F-350 is still going to be an F-350, and no one will mistake one for the other.

And while we wait for the Santa Cruz to arrive, let’s have a look at some models that also wore the “truck” name, without always fitting the definition of a truck.

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Subaru BRAT (1978-1987)

It stood for Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter, and it basically owed its odd conformation to a political dust-up popularly known as the “Chicken Tax.” In the 1950s, farmers overseas couldn’t compete with cheap chicken exported from the U.S., and Europe put a hefty tariff on it. The U.S. retaliated by taxing several items, including trucks, which also affected Japanese manufacturers.

The BRAT was based on Subaru’s Leone station wagon, but was still considered enough of a truck to be taxed. So Subaru put two small rear-facing seats in the bed, complete with seat belts. That turned it into enough of a “passenger vehicle” to arrive in North America unscathed. The Chicken Tax is still on trucks, which is why Japanese automakers build their trucks over here — as with the Santa Cruz, which will come out of Hyundai’s plant in Alabama.

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Subaru Baja (2003-2006)

But wait, there was more! At the Los Angeles Auto Show in 2000, Subaru debuted a car-based concept called the ST-X, for “Sport Truck Xperimental.” Three years later, the resulting Baja went on sale. It was based on the Legacy station wagon, and built at Subaru’s plant in Lafayette, Indiana.

It held four people, and with an open bed in back for outdoor gear. It also had a secondary opening behind the rear seats, so long items could be carried. Subaru called it the “World’s First Multiple Choice Vehicle,” but not enough people chose it to keep it in production. It only lasted four model years, although today it has a loyal following of fans.

Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup (1979-1983)

This little trucklet looks like a European transplant, but it’s actually the other way around. After the new Rabbit arrived – known to the rest of the world as the Golf, but we had to be different – Volkswagen of America thought it could be used to tap into the mini-truck craze, and got the go-ahead from Germany to design one.

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It was built in VW’s factory in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. It was a Rabbit from the doors forward, but with a bed, and with unique rear springs and taillights. Canadians just got a gas engine, but in the U.S. you could get it with a four-cylinder diesel, too. But only some 76,000 were sold over five years, and it was discontinued. The little truck did far better when it went on sale overseas, where it was called the Caddy.

Ford Ranchero (1957-1979)

The Ranchero was Ford’s answer for people who wanted the practicality of a truck with the comfort of a car. It was basically a two-door station wagon with the roof cut off, and it caught the eye of execs at Chevrolet, which responded two years later with its El Camino.

The Ranchero went through seven generations, including shrinking down as a version of Ford’s all-new compact Falcon for 1960. It would also later be based on the Fairlane and Torino, and end its days on the LTD II platform. The El Camino both outlived and outsold it, topping a million units (including its GMC twin) to the Ranchero’s total tally of 508,355 copies.

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GMC Sprint/Caballero (1971-1987)

Sure, you know the car-based Chevy El Camino, launched as a full-size in 1959 to compete with the Ranchero. It lasted only two years, but then it came back again as a smaller, Chevelle-based model for 1964. But many people don’t realize it had a twin sibling starting in 1971, so GMC dealers could have a version in their showrooms, too. The Sprint was renamed the Caballero in 1978.

The GMC version was more upscale than the El Camino, but unlike today, a fancy truck is not necessarily a successful truck. The El Camino’s best year was in 1973, when it sold 64,987 units. The Caballero never even came close; its sales peak was in 1979 and only 6,952 GMC versions went out the door that year.

Dodge Rampage (1982-1984)

The Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon were Chrysler’s first U.S.-built cars with front-wheel-drive. Since other automakers were turning their cars into pickups, Dodge decided to take the Omni and do it, too. The story goes that an exec had a custom-car builder create a one-off, and when company chief Lee Iacocca saw it, he gave it the green light for production.

Like the car platform it was based upon, the Rampage was a front-driver and with a 2.2L four-cylinder, but it was rated for 1,145 lbs of payload. Still, as Volkswagen and Subaru had discovered, tiny trucks weren’t really big sellers, and the Rampage moved only some 37,000 units over three years. Even rarer was its Plymouth Scamp sibling, produced only for 1983.