Box & Build Review 4: AMT Subaru Brat... Box Stock and Beyond
First of all, strap in, because we're going to cover a lot of ground in this one. We're comparing an original kit to the reissue, doing an in-box review, a buildup review, an showing a couple of "beyond the box" examples of the kit. But first, a little history of the Subaru Brat.
Wanting to establish a foothold in the US market, and taking note of the increasing popularity of compact pickups and four-wheel-drive vehicles in that country, the president of Subaru's North American operations requested the parent company to develop a light truck. Beginning with the Leone wagon, Subaru's engineers created an open cargo bay to create a smart, Ranchero-style "ute". And in addition to making four wheel drive standard, they gave it a cutesy name... Brat, which was actually an acronym for Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter. (Wait... wouldn't that be B-DRA-TT?) So, Subaru had a sure bet for the American market, right? Well...
Unfortunately for Subaru, there was a snag in this plan. Due to a tariff on imported vehicles, light trucks were charged with a 25% tax. Other Japanese trucks got around this by shipping the trucks to the US minus the cargo bed. Once stateside, a US-built bed would be fitted to the truck before it was shipped off to the dealer. Since the Brat's bed was part of the body, Subaru couldn't dodge the tax like that. But... if they added a pair of jump seats to the bed, they could then classify the Brat as a passenger car. As such, the vehicle was now subject to a much-less-severe 2.5% tax!
Did it work? Well, no. The Brat ended up not being the vehicle that cemented Subaru's success in North America. That came much later, with vehicles like the Legacy and Forester. The pickup sold reasonably well in Australia, where it was called Brumby. Ironically enough, Japan never got the Brat, so many of them have ended up going back to Japan, into the eager hands of collectors. While the Brat left the US market in 1987 (two years after the jump seats disappeared), the Brumby stayed in production all the way up to 1994.
In 1978, AMT was owned by Matchbox parent company Lesney, and they saw fit to release a full detail 1:25 scale kit of Subaru's oddball little pickup. Here's the box of one of those kits.
Now, here's the reissue box art, which oddly looks more " '70's " to me than the actual 1978 box art.
The reissue is molded in white, while the 1978 kit is molded in a primer grey shade. The 1978 plastic is a bit more rigid and brittle than the reissue plastic, as evidenced here by the broken windshield post.
The chassis has a pretty good level of underside detail. Also note the headrest from one of the rear jump seats, which broke off. Remember, brittle old plastic. The other headrest was nowhere to be found.
Here we have the rear cab bulkhead, inner tailgate panel, bucket seats, tailgate cables, outer tailgate panel, dash, hood, rear splash apron, front splash apron, and optional "off road" front bumper.
Here we have the wheels, radiator, air cleaner housing, battery, valve covers, intake manifold, starter, belt/front cover unit, horns, brake master cylinder, an the engine/transmission halves.
Mechanical parts dominate this sprue, where you will find the front and rear suspension units, front struts, skid plate, transmission crossmember, mounting bracket for the rear jump seats, steering rack, steering wheel and column, rear axle, rear shocks, brake rotors, and locator pins for the front wheels.
Here we have the roll bar components, the handle bars for the rear jump seats, and the sadly-decapitated jump seats themselves. The complete exhaust system exists on it's own runner.
Front and rear glass is all you get for clear parts.
All the lenses are molded into their host parts. You get two stock bumpers, the grille, rear tail lights, shifters, mirrors, and light lenses for the roll bar.
The hollow Firestones are the same style that come in the reissue, but the 1978 kit tires have gotten rock hard over time. Probably still usable, but no longer as pliable as they used to be.
The instruction sheet is simple and effective, no wonder Round 2 didn't bother re-writing it for the reissue.
The original decal sheet is... well... nothing impressive. Two Michigan plates (yes!), stock Brat stripes, and three three graphics of what appears to be a naked ennis The Menace with evil horns and a halo. I guess it's a personified Brat?
The reissue decal sheet loses the Michigan plates (boooooo), but more than compensates with the choices in graphics. You even get a few duplicates just in case.
How does it go together?
Other than a slightly warped body and the iffy parts fit common to late '70s AMT kits, the assembly process was actually pretty pleasant. For some reason I hit upon doing it as a weathered veterinary vehicle. I figure Dr. Pol (who's only a few miles to the north of me) likes to use beat-up old Jeeps for his practice, our fictional Dr. Pierce might have a similar fleet of rag-tag Subarus. The markings were made on my laptop and printed out on Micro Mark clear carrier film.
Being a Michigan car, I had to add lots of rust. Here you can see the carrier film in the decal graphics. I think I added to thick of a layer of bonder to the graphics. But they look good enough from most angles so I'll lie with it for now. I also cut away some material from the rear quarters to simulate rust damage, and drilled the tip of the tailpipe.
This one has had the trademark Brat jump seats deleted. Some veterinary association decals were added, along with the kit-supplied tailgate graphics. I originally planned a wooden rear bumper but later decided to use the stock bumper, skewed just a bit. So other than some decals, this one is box stock.
AMT omitted the spare tire, which would sit behind the air cleaner housing. I may add one at some point as now I have a few spare Brat parts laying around. Other than the plug wires it's all out of the box in the engine bay as of right now.
But what if you want to go a little beyond box stock?
I actually built this one before the "stock" one. The Desert Dog tires came from an MPC 1980 Ford Bronco, but these also came in the Daisy Duke Jeep. These are the regular size for the 15" wheel, not the "blown up" examples from the '84 GMC or Jeepster. The wheels came from an MPC Chevy Cavalier, as I needed a wide wheel with four lugs.
I basically made a lift by adding spacers between the suspension and chassis, and made up some extended CV axles to deal with the new suspension height. I also radiused the wheel openings and added a 3D-printed turbocharger. After all, that tiny little boxer four will need a little help spinning those much-larger tires!
A few months later, I added a snorkel and a winch. The winch was scratch built to resemble one that seems to be common on Australian Subarus. The snorkel is a bent piece of plastic rod capped by the scoop from a Revell Wrangler. And I still may add more to this... I'm thinking of adding some off road lighting and maybe even making up a little topper shell for it. Here you can see the racing bucket seats, which came from an MPC Pinto Wagon.
And then there's this....
The "Brat Rat" premise was that somebody had a Brat that was way too rusted out to fix in any traditional way, so out came the reciprocating saw and welder. The body was cut down to a three-window coupe style and the top was chopped.
Another MPC Cavalier coughed up it's wheel hubs, which were fit into steelies from a '49 Ford. The scoop feeds a duct leading to the radiator.
The stock Subaru engine was fitted to a VW transaxle and a turbo was installed. I couldn't resist cutting down the Brat b-pillar decals to say "Rat".
And I have a couple of other Brats in the pipeline, including a pro-touring style with a V8 swap, and a pro street version. I'm certainly glad that Round 2 brought this one back!
