A gaggle of rare French machines from the OldMotors archive today; once again from Martinique. A trio of Peugeot 403 pickups are fronted by a Renault Goélette minibus, set to take people from Fort-de-France to…
Posts tagged Trucks
Saab 9-7x: An Oldsmobile Becomes a TrollBlazer
Not-so-old Motors today and the famous (infamous?) “TrollBlazer.” Saab’s 9-7x was the least Saab-like Saab of all time and came to be a symbol of GM’s mishandling of its Swedish subsidiary. It seemed like an…
Ford Bronco Mk1: A Horse Untamed
It could be fairly said that 1964 was Ford’s year of the horse. That April, Ford’s epoch-defining Mustang debuted at the New York World’s fair. The Mustang not only created an entirely new market, it…
SUV Mania: 1993 Ford Explorer Limited
The year was 1985. Just a year earlier, famous auto exec and future Chrysler and GM product Czar Bob Lutz had returned to Dearborn, Michigan. He was still working for Ford then, and fresh off…
A Van By Any Other Name: Mitsubishi “Wagon”
The Mitsubishi Delica name dates back to 1968, but it was in the 1980s that the van became famous as a go-anywhere overlander. Today, 1980s and 1990s JDM AWD Diesel Delicas are popular enough in…
Airborne Armor: Land Rover 1/2-ton Lightweight
It’s a Land Rover alright, but of a very particular kind – it’s called the “half ton lightweight,” although it’s actually not as light as the name or materials used would imply. The story of…
O.G. G-Wagen: Mercedes 460-Series Geländewagen
Nobody would have predicted that the military surplus Mercedes Geländewagen would end up a coveted luxury item, but that’s what it’s best known as today. This particularly true in the USA, where the truck’s best-ever…
Alpine Fire Brigade: Volkswagen LT 4X4
Hundreds of thousands of VW LT vans were built over the truck’s lengthy lifespan – 1975 to 1996 – but just 1,250 of them were the lifted, go-anywhere 4X4 models. LT stands for “Lasten-Transporter,” loosely…
Econline Pickup: The Forward Control Ford
The big news in Detroit in 1960 was the arrival of “compact” cars – and in particular, the Ford Falcon. But just as imported cars had encroached on domestics 1950s, smaller and more fuel efficient…
Rough and Rare: 1979 Ford Ranchero Squire
Ford’s Ranchero was the first modern North American “coupe utility,” but it never sold as well as anticipated – rarely more than 23K units a year through its early variations until it was tied to…
Japan’s Jimny JA11
Suzuki’s first U.S. model (aside from some early imports to Puerto Rico) was the Samurai, aka the Jimny SJ413 – and it was an instant hit when it debuted in 1985. Just as it had…