These concept trucks will make you question your sanity

Concept cars occupy a strange place in car culture. They are distinctly and intentionally niche by design. While some concept cars are mostly created as marketing efforts, many of them manage to completely melt into the corners of car nerd brains. Over the years, these forgotten concepts have become rich deposits for nostalgia, the mourning of missed opportunity, and downright mind-bending acts of creativity. More so than any other concept vehicle in the segment, concept pickup trucks delve into the deepest reaches of dreamy phantasmagoria. What makes the concept truck category so distinct and interesting to dive into is their very nature. 

There is something honest about car designers trying to envision the next step of pickup truck evolution while also trying to appeal to the people who buy pickup trucks. If this reads as opaque, hang with me. This will make more sense the further we get. Concept trucks are one of the most interesting and hilarious things on four (or more) wheels. Sit back, relax, and strap in. It’s time to talk about concept trucks. 

2002 Ford F-350 Tonka concept truck

No toe-dipping happening here. We're diving straight into it with a concept truck that cuts right to the heart of what makes the segment so fun. The 2002 Ford F-350 Mighty Tonka concept was what happened when Ford decided that the already stupid-huge Super Duty wasn't stupid-huge enough. Drenched in eye-searing yellow, riding on nearly 40-inch, what look like tractor tires, 22-inch wheels, and packing dual rear wheels beneath a body so wide it could overshadow any personal insecurity, the Mighty Tonka looked less like a pickup and more like what a Super Duty owner sees in their mind’s eye escaped into the real world. 

Ford

But beneath all that shouting was some genuinely interesting technology, including a 600-pound-foot 6.0-liter Power Stroke diesel, air suspension that could kneel for easier entry or rise for water crossings, and a hydraulic launch-assist system that stored braking energy and used it to help launch the 6,500-pound truck. I can only imagine this build needed all the help it could get. Ford said the concept was a test bed for technology that could eventually reach the Super Duty, but as a production vehicle, its target customer was probably the sort of person who thought they needed a fifth-wheel trailer, four chrome tow hooks, 40-inch tires and an aviation-style cockpit just to make a run to Home Depot.

Ford

1995 Plymouth Backpack Concept

If ever there was a pickup truck that rejected literally every single part of what pickup trucks are, it’s the pre-pubescent, Dodge Neon-based Plymouth Backpack concept. Even the name is delightful and childish. No dinosaur names, earth-ripping tread or silly commercials comparing it to the family dog or the Declaration of Independence or whatever else truck people like. A truck like this isn’t trying to prove anything to anyone. And as a direct and violent opposition to the humongo trucks marauding our streets today, the Backpack embodied confidence. Despite its peanutty proportions, Plymouth slapped a 135-hp 2-liter four-cylinder. I can't tell if that power in this little thing is a positive or negative. Thankfully, we don't need to know.

Chrysler

2012 Jeep Mighty FC

Ok. Jeep makes some of the coolest concept trucks the world has ever known. The Wrangler, old standby, has been made and remade into every shape imaginable. Not unlike the Ford Mustang – a car that so completely engulfed American car culture that it's now impossible to find a segment the Mustang doesn’t try to join – in 2012, the Wrangler lurched into the forward-control space, confusing everyone. 

Jeep

Jeep made forward-control trucks under the FC nomenclature and made thousands of these FC trucks from 1956-1965. They never gained the popularity that the Willys and eventual CJs did, but that didn’t stop Mr. Jeep from trying to shoehorn the JK Wrangler series into a 50-year-old agricultural platform. The 2012 Jeep Mighty FC was cool and all, but I can’t help but see a Wrangler slapped into shape like the Greek goddess/sorceress Circe did to Odysseus’s men, stretching and pulling until the Wrangler’s little face stuck out like a curious snout.

2000 Ford 24.7 Pickup Concept

*walking around punching the air* 

Ford

I hate this thing. Before letting Ford get both barrels on this one, to be fair, the early 2000s were a strange time. The world was in transition, and where we were going to pop out was a mystery. That said, calling this weird digital rice cake box a truck is like calling a baby spoon a shovel. 

Ford

It’s not just that this is so ugly that it breeds so much contempt – and don’t get me wrong, it’s ugly enough to breed an army of contempt – but it was Ford’s idea behind it. Ford took a Focus platform and gave it a pickup bed and a bunch of tiresome electronics. The ethos behind this literbox was: what if people didn’t have to disconnect from technology when on the road? Ford decided that what the off-road enthusiast really needed was the ability to check email while climbing rocks. The voice-activated controls and projected display were genuinely forward-thinking for the era, but the idea of taking a tiny Focus-based truck into the wilderness while staying digitally tethered to the office feels like a pretty good argument for humanity to pack it in and just wait for Glory.

In retrospect, the 24.7 was less a pickup for adventurers than a pickup for the worst parts of the paradise that is our modern age. Swing and a miss, Ford. 

2017 Yamaha Cross Hub

Yamaha

The 2017 Yamaha Cross Hub is like if someone tried to explain the entirety of car culture to an alien and then told it to make a car people would like. This dumb little thing has the single strangest collection of automotive features: a truck bed, center-driving position, “diamond-shaped” passenger seating, and a boat deck-inspired wooden floor. When Yamaha makes trucks, up is down, left is right, and nothing makes sense. Send this abomination to the bottom of the sea and let’s not speak of it again. 

Yamaha

1981 Ford Bronco Montana Lobo Concept

I want to make fun of this tough-guy fast back, Crocodile Dundee truck thing so bad. I really want to, but I can’t. It’s like at every turn Ford only asked one question: ”Is it cool?” If the answer was no, they kept trying until they picked the coolest option for whichever component. Exhaust: side pipes with a heat shield. Bumpers: integrated with all manner of cool stuff strapped to em. Wheels: steel. Engine: V8. Bed: louvered side panels?!?!?! 

Ford

Nothing about this truck made any sense at all. That V8 was 5.0-liter that made 135 Horsepower and only 243 lb-ft of torque. The badass sidepipes sit nestled between the rocker panel and the running boards like a rattlesnake under the last porch step waiting to tag anyone who walks by. The bed with the super-cool louvered side panels hides carpeted bench seats just behind them. Carpet?! Oh, and last but certainly not least, one of the dumbest cool choices was full plexiglass bubble doors. I gotta go for a walk or sumn. 

Ford

1999 Dodge Power Wagon Concept

Here lies the ugliest of its kind, the 1999 Dodge Power Wagon Concept. Barf city. Seeing this truck for what it is requires no historical truck knowledge. A child doesn’t need to know much to understand an open sewer stinks.  But if you know the post-war Power Wagons, this truck becomes particularly offensive because of how beautiful those early models are. 

Dodge

The problem here isn’t the risk of incorporating classic truck features like the swoopy fenders and spread-out headlight configuration. The problem is Dodge didn’t incorporate them. It looks like a regular Dodge Ram parked between two halves of something else completely unrelated. It’s giving Mr. Potato Head. 

1988 GMC Centaur Concept

GMC

Alright, alright! Everyone settle down. I need a little space to think… The 1988 GMC Centaur Concept is perfect in a way I’m not sure I can articulate. No one part makes any sense. Every choice displayed here seems obviously wrong and even antithetical to what makes a pickup truck unique and cool. Still, somehow, like a cosmological anomaly in some distant reaches of our galaxy, the Centaur just works. 

GMC

I keep looking at pictures of it, grasping for some sort of objectivity that I simply can’t get my head around. I shouldn’t like it. You shouldn’t like it either, but we do (you know you do). It reminds me equally of my Mom’s Toyota Previa from my childhood and also of my buddy’s ragged-out El Camino with equal clarity. The length of it. The design of the two-tone paint and the strange Ferrari-esque ribbing in front of the rear wheels. The full-moon wheels. Then GM gave it an inline-six, turning all four wheels.

Adding to the cruelty that is this fantasy space-ranger truck, GMC photos showed the interior with a great big ol’ stick shifter rising from between the two front seats. GMC says it had an “experimental” five-speed automatic. Was the experiment just “what if it had a manual clutch and gear shifter?” 

GMC

I don’t know what all was going on with these crazy things, and I don’t care. I like it, and I don't care who knows it.  

2000 GMC Terradyne Concept

Considering our limited time on Earth, I don’t want to spend too much time on the Cybertruck’s unemployed step-cousin’s sister’s friend here. The 2000 GMC Terradyne Concept looks like GMC wanted to go down the Cybertruck route and gave up about 12% into starting. I hate it, and you do too. 

GMC

2021 Bollinger B2

The fun of concept vehicles is seeing car makers try something new. Even if it's completely bonkers and dumb, at least it should be something we’ve never seen before. Well, the 2021 Bollinger B2 doesn’t do any of that. 

Bollinger

This Kleenex is only offensive due to its utter lack of design. This feels like the only car I could draw when I was four years old, holding the pencil like a dagger, scratching out straight lines, forming squares of various sizes with circles floating somewhere vaguely beneath. Next.

1993 Chevrolet Highlander Concept

Now, this here is a doozy. Before we get into this, I have to say, I respect how hard GM sent it here. Chevrolet’s take on the Highlander is nothing but attitude. Only in the ‘90s would GM have the stones needed to put out a pickup truck in this colorway. It looks like fan art of Joker’s truck from some lost era of Batman comics. 

Chevrolet

Despite how much I don’t like looking at it, there’s not much choice but to respect it. Chevrolet might have made a major uggo here, but at least they tried something. You could argue that they tried something terrible, but they still tried, and hey, I’m proud of you, Chevrolet, and I’ll tell y’all what I tell my toddler: “I can tell you worked really hard on that.” The longer you look at the Highlander concept, the more you begin to question reality. I find myself googling more and more as my doubt sets in deeper and deeper. 

Chevrolet

I’m sure of it; there’s no way Chevrolet actually made this Chuck E. Cheese machine for real. No way.