It was the 70's. We rode in the bed of pickups all the time. Dad kept a wooden bench in the bed for us to sit on. The Brat seemed like an upgrade verses just sitting on the floor.
same, but early 80s. And we were well under 10. Dad knew how to take it easy with kids in the back, and we were not so stupid as to jump out. Also, went on more than one "hay ride" with a load of kids and hay bales to sit on, for a sorta slow tour of a farm or something like fall trees or christmas lights. Later in HS, when we would "cruise" main street, particularly poor types might over load the back of a pickup, particularly in summer. All gone, traded for instagram and teektok. Stupid laws.
Best friend in HS took a set of these and threw them in the back of his 80's Toyota pickup. Cops would stop of regularly to ask, 'Is that legal??,' and it was! Rode in the back for a 4 hour drive down the highway and it was the most miserable car ride of my life. I didn't know you could get sunburned while being so cold at the exact same time....
A road in the back of the truck, most of the 80s, without a seat of any kind never got pulled over for it. I'm pretty sure right in the back of the truck was still legal in the 80s.
Growing up in the sixties, it was normal for people to ride in the back of the truck. My whole little league team was fit in the back of the pickup to go get ice cream after a game.
I spent most of my pre 16 years riding in the back of a truck. We could leave high school at noon for lunch so there would be a whole load of guys going down town for lunch. I learned to absorb bumps stand not on a motorcycle but in the back of a truck. Plus as the gate opener on farms you rode on the tailgate. The cab of the truck was like the big table at family dinners.
Im 55, we rode in the back of pickup trucks, back dash of cars, back of station wagons..... no seat belts... love your videos especially the Model T ones since I have one.
And that was when we were kids!! Parents didn't have to worry about "child endangerment ". Now if kids aren't strapped in 15 different ways and wrapped in bubble wrap, the parents get arrested and tossed in jail.
In the early 80s, my mom‘s boyfriend had one of these. I recall riding around town by myself in the back of that thing. I was around four years old and I absolutely loved it. Safe no. Fun… yes!
I’m from China and I vividly remember in the late 90s our elementary school put us 30 kids at the bed of a huge cargo truck for a field trip. It was all fun and normal back then. It would be a liability nightmare today.
If I remember correctly, the Suzuki Sidekick was another vehicle affected by the Chicken Tax. It had to be "imported" WITH back seats. (possibly for the same reason as the BRAT. But there was a location in the US that would remove the seats and ship them back to the factory to be used again. Then the Car was shipped to the Dealers. There was no requirement for the car to be "SOLD" with the seats installed.
We grew up riding in the back of pickup truck beds. No seats, no seatbelt let alone a three point harness. We just sat on the wheel well. Yes, we were stupid, yes we weren't thinking of safety and yes we had fun. And yes, we were lucky we never got thrown out of these old pickup truck beds and died. Safety was always last in the 70's. Fun video
This was our families only transportation in 1979-81. It was my mom and 3 kids in Maine. Yup Maine! It was so cold one winter that we had to put a shop light with a 100 watt bulb under the car so the oil was warm enough to start the car. I was the eldest child at home so I got to sit in the front. I actually learned to drive stick in that car. I loved that car, there are so many great memories!!!
This episode is hysterical and Alex is the man. The screams, the awkwardness, the pointing & laughing, too funny! Looking forward to the next episode. Perhaps car spotting from the rear seats of a BRAT?
This is hilarious video. A 79 Subaru Brat was my first car and I had people in the back all through high school until upgraded to a 83 cj7 which probably wasn’t much safer
Mine was a 1978 Subaru wagon that was the same as the Brat. It used the same body and front end you could see where the panels would have been cut out to make the Brat version.
These seats were put into the back of Brats to get around the 25% 'Chicken Tax' on imported light trucks. The seats made the Brat a passenger vehicle instead of a light truck and not subject to the tax. These seats were usually removed at the dealership before rhe vehicle was sold. This tax still exists today.
Ford is being *wrongfully* sued right now because they put extremely cheap seats in the back of the Made In Turkey Transit Connect to get around the Chicken Tax. So the rear seat loophole has been utilized as recently as 2010.
I’m half way through this video and I’m convinced you should keep the Brat forever and make a weekly video just like this. By far the funniest video I’ve watched in a long, long time. This is so great!
Hilarious video, guys! I remember seeing these Brats around back in the day; I never saw anyone actually ride in the back of one. It’s really tiny back there & I had no idea how little room there actually is!
Ahh these guys are so precious . Riding in the back of pickups was quite common before the days of the quad-extendo cab trucks that are so common now. I had to ride in the back of an old ford range w my brother through the Appalachian mountains in the rain.
This me reminds me of my dad's pickup bed story he loves to tell. When he was a kid he had to travel from LA to Lake Havasu, AZ in the back of a '65 Dodge pickup because that was the only vehicle his parents had at the time and since he was the older brother he had to endure 100F Temps and the baking sun for hours and hours...he saw the lord that day 😂😂
You have to transport yourself back to the 70s when riding in the back of the pickup was a common thing. The least safe was probalby the teanagers driving with the bed full of friends heading to a drive in or the lake. People didn't see safety the same back then, we were not as worried about it. I remember when it wasn't a law to wear a seatbelt at all, people resisted when the law was passed.
I'd love TFL to make a video of calling and talking to their insurance provider, asking if it's OK to ride in the back and the insurance companies' response.
Having seats and seat belts was a step up in safety from just piling into the back of a pickup truck. Also, if you were a kid, that was probably a fun experience.
A buddy gave a couple friends a ride home from school one weekend. He had a BRAT and I lost the coin toss and got the back seat. That was a 400 mile round trip but I only had the back one way, the other friend got it on the way back. He had a topper on it so I didn't have the trouble with the wind and dirt. But you had to sit all hunched over so it sure wasn't a fun trip.
This is the best TFL anything video in years. No sponsorship plugs, no being intentionally nice about cars that you feel otherwise about, etc. Just good wholsome fun.
As a Gen-Xer, we drank from water hoses, played on steel playground equipment on asphalt playgrounds, rode our bikes without helmets and jumped on planks of wood propped up on bricks... and YES, we LOVED riding in the back of trucks (usually without seats)... as to the BRAT itself, rode in it, didn't bother with the lap belts, because most kids would ride without seats to begin with. In the 70s and 80s, kids would PREFER to ride in the back of a truck then in an stuffy cab. Somehow... we're still alive today!
This +70yr old agrees with these thoughts. He routinely rode in the back of his dads 1930s/40s? Chevy truck, and played with mercury AND asbestos , and lives to thumb his nose at the Nanny State
Hi guys, David here from Tasmania, Australia. Great video, fun all the way. How ironic is it that 2 of the ads shown through the video were for new Suburu SUV's. A neighbour 2 doors down from me still has, and drives regularly, one of these utes. (thats what they are called downunder) Here in Australia they were marketed as the "Brumby". A pretty rare car these days, yet when we first moved to Tasmania in 2007, there was 4 of them in the town I live in.
That Subaru is rhino guard then painted? That’s cool. It looks good. That model Brat the Gen 1 also had two canopy options you could get. A high top and a low top. Both versions were to accommodate a high or low roll bar if it was equipped in the vehicle. This car shown is a low top roll bar. With a high roll bar you can sit rain free under the canopy, and would have windows like a typical canopy for air flow. And for no reason you could get a front bumper with a winch or snow blow attachment.
Kids used to ride in the back of pickup trucks all the time, without seats. This was a big upgrade at the time. It was also useful for backing into a space at a drive-in movie theater.
I own a Brat and people love it. Men, women, girls, boys will wave and smile, it generates a lot of positive energy and comments. Some people don't even know what it is but others will tell me about a Brat memory from their past and always with a big smile on their face. I don't have the seats though.........
It gave flashbacks to my childhood. We rode in the back of anything in the sixties, seventies and eighties. My friend had a Brat he had a custom cap made for it . We would sit in back as children we thought it was the coolest thing 😂. When I got my first vehicle it was a 79 Datsun pickup . I put a cap on it and then put some van seats in the back. We thought we were so smart and I also put cup holders in . I don't think cup holders were put in vehicles until the nineties. You had to be a tough kid when you grew up in the sixties seventies and eighties. 😂
I love the colours. 5:41 Ronald Reagan did the same thing to motorcycles in early 80s because Hardley spat the dummy because nobody wanted to buy their bikes anymore.
The seats were added to avoid the "chicken tax" (look it up) on small imported pickups. Nearly everyone took those seats out and threw them away. Never actually meant to be used.
this is the best you guys have produced with the people that count most and the whole video was shits and giggles buzzing around in the back of Subaru Brat, my neighbour had i think it was the 3rd or 4th one sold in Manitoba and we went camping in it and his younger brother and i rode in those seats almost 2 hours to the lake camp ground at 70 mph and people were waving at us and smiling away probably thinking we were nuts, then a Ford F100 passed us with half a dozen teenagers in the box drinking and smoking weed hollering at us and laughing, it was a good weekend ,camping no rain and they just fogged the campgrounds so there wasn't too many mosquitos, good memories and good times , Nathan driving put it to its limits very quickly 😂
I'm 48 and probably spent more time in the bed of a truck, on a package shelf or in the rear hatch than I did in an actual seat before I got my license
Same here...our 1st wagon didnt even come with seatbelts. We would stand up in the rear seat all the time. Rode minimikes with no helmets, drank from the hose bib, played football in the street. No kid ever started this "omg i dont feel safe" crap...they woulda been beat up
really? I'm in my 60's. We used to ride standing in the back of old pickups (with an FBI agent driving no less), we survived....and that with seats is way safer...safer is relative... You've never seen a Rumble Seat? Now THAT was dangerous. Uh, let me introduce you to my sidecar... 😎
It's funny that you mention the Rumble Seat. My wife and I were on our way to the store yesterday, and happened to see an old model car with one installed. I about lost it when we saw that. My wife had never seen that model of car, and didn't know what a Rumble Seat was. I knew, because I was raised by my grandmother, who told me many stories about "incidents" in that Rumble Seat. I'm 57, so I also grew up in the "rode in the back of a pickup truck" era. One of the wildest ones was when 8 teenagers (including myself), were sat in the back of a pickup truck heading to a Civil War Reenactment up in Pennsylvania.... along with the 8 of us, was a full size canon that was strapped down, and a cooler full of beer that we not only had access to, but raided the entire 3 hour drive up from Baltimore. The canon and the cooler were secured in.... unlike the 8 of us, who were free to move around. I want to say that was 1982, which would have made me 15 at the time. The "legal" drinking age was 18 at that time, and IIRC, I was the oldest of the teenagers in the back of that truck. Everyone else was a year or two younger than I was. But yeah.... 8 drunk teenagers, a canon, and a cooler full of beer packed into the bed of a pickup truck on a road trip. Somehow, we all lived through that insane weekend. Also, there was another 10 cases of beer in the other vehicle that was hauling the other adults of our crew. What a time to be alive....
A friend at high school had a Brat. I rode in the back many times. I have also ridden in the back of many pickups over my years too. All of that was destroyed by a Ford Courier and a kid named Alan Cole. He drove his little truck filled with high schoolers down Patuxent Road in Maryland and missed a corner and killed several kids. Maryland passed a law that no one could ever ride in a pickup bed ever again. It was called the Alan B. Cole law.
Ahhhh you are the first person to understand it lol. I sprayed this car it's tinted raptor liner and it was a theme build I called it the scoobaroo brat I even had a huge scooby doo to go in the bed of it but they didn't want it lol.
Literally no one back then ever asked "why the heck are there seats in the back?" or deemed the word "brat" to be socially anything at all. We weren't soft.
I would love it if Tommy and Case would do more of the bigger videos. These two are much more fun to watch and you can tell they research everything before recording. Roman and Nathan are getting increasingly harder to watch. And more often than not, they just start complaining about things and I often see them making more mistakes.
Pansies! I can’t tell you how many times I rode in the back of a pickup truck. I even rode in the back of my uncles Brat. I loved it. It is a cherished memory. I didn’t die or get hurt. Chill out.
We had brains and common sense even as kids back then. Rarely heard of anyone getting hurt riding in the back, it was more like dogs that would fall/jump out.
@@gordocarbo You yourself can have all the sense in the world but if someone T-bones you and you flip you're 100% dead and there won't be anything you can do about it.
@@SmolPotatowo Okay, but you're creating a specific scenario. Looking at the broader picture, accident rates haven't declined much over the years. If anything, the FA rate is starting to tick upward, which goes against common notions of car safety. This could be explained by a tradeoff. Sure, cars are theoretically safer in an accident because of more laws and crash safety standards, but that likely has lead to drivers to becoming complacent and overconfident in their ability to avoid or survive accidents, resulting in drivers taking more risks, being more careless in general, or just having lesser skills overall. 50 years ago, the sense of danger is what created common sense, making people more careful and responsible drivers. If you wanted to be safe on the road, it was not up to the car or the laws to you keep safe, it was up to the individuals to adhere to a common culture of driver safety.
When you consider we were all riding in the back of the truck anyway back then, the seats and lap belt were a huge safety upgrade. It finally became against the law for regular passengers to ride loose in the back of the truck on February 1st, 2000 in my area.
This video is a clear illustration of your youth and you certainly did not grow up before the 80s. Riding in the bed of a pickup truck with common. The great part of the El Camino or Ranchero and even the Brat were that they sat at car heights and you did not have to climb up and into the bed. It was just easier. Where the bigger trucks were designed more for work, they did not come with jump seats and bench seats in the bed. However, just like later in years when someone could buy a Ford Explorer SportTrac with a grocery getting 5 ft bed, a Honda "truck" with sloped bedsides so you can't fit a common topper or use 2×4s across the bed to haul something bigger, or what are the modern Maverick where the pointless bed is the size of some cars trunks, there is a purpose for each of the differences. It's not something to mock and laugh at; that just shows your lack of understanding.
I remembered riding in the back of my dad's truck without seats and later on he bolted a bench seat in the bed.❤❤❤ good times and memories. This episode is funny😂😂😂
The seats were added to the back to cut the tax cost on the US would charge a way bigger interest on imparts that weren't 4 seater so this was there way around it
I love this little thing. My parents really wanted one back in the early 80's. From what my mom said they settled on a brand new 1982 2WD Subaru GL wagon. It unfortunately got repoed a few months after they got it when my dad was between jobs and they missed ONE payment!
My aunt had one brand new. I've never seen adults use it. It was always kids riding in the back. Us kids used to love riding back there. The Brat was a luxury to us kids because we normally wouldn't have seats riding in the back of other trucks.
It wasn’t Dumb! There were less people on the road. Those on the road were marginally better at driving. No STUPID Infotainment Systems! You were in the moment.
This is only dumb to the bubble wrapped millennials and Gen Zers who grew up with helmets and need pads to walk to school, who had to wear harnesses while on the playground. This was the best way to drive to the lake!
Growing up in the 70s and 80's we rode in the back of pickup trucks all the time. I remember going on camping trips from Southern California to Yellowstone riding in the back of a 72 Ford F-100 pickup all the way there laying down looking up at the stars on a bed roll and sleeping bag for a pillow. The truck was only a single cab.
Here in Australia, it's called the Subaru Brumby. They don't put the seats in the back, but they put the little pegs for the hold-down straps on a tonneau cover lining the edge of the tray.
This is the best analysis of the chicken tax I've ever seen! Wonderful! Also the review of state law with Colorado State Patrol urging you, whatever state law may actually say, not to go in the back! And how did you manage not to lose your sunglasses?
They sold these utes as the Brumby in Australia. And they only put those seats in the back for the US market. Riding in the back of utes was pretty popular here many years ago. My dad spent some time growing up riding in the back of his neighbour’s FE Holden ute which had a canopy on it (you referred to a canopy as a “topper” in this video) whenever my grandfather borrowed it to travel to Melbourne from the Victorian Goldfields, and I spent part of my childhood riding in the back of my dad’s Mazda B1800, and my daughter did spend part of her childhood riding in the back of my Ford XG Falcon ute, then my Ford BA Falcon ute in paddocks. It’s illegal to have anyone ride in the back of utes anywhere in Australia these days though. Also, that ute looks like it’s been painted in Upol Raptor, the worst thing you could paint any car with that isn’t used for hardcore off-roading.
Believe it or not ' Subaru Brats were very popular during the late seventies. The back seats had 2 grab handles each, with just a lap belt. Check out the Subi commercial with the Brat on the Beach ... they were so much fun!
A buddy of mine had one back when I was a teenager, and we had a blast riding around in it. At that time, you'd often see pickups driving around with all the kids riding in the bed, so having the seats in the Brat was considered a safety feature!
My father had 3 of these. The New Zealand spec did not have the backseats. They were a great farm runabout and good for carting dogs or doing fence maintenance or other light duty jobs. Being so light they didn't make pasture damage the way a tractor did.
GenX here. I remember riding in the back of my dad's pickup truck down the 101 Freeway in the Bay Area in the 70s or early 80s. I think it was legal until seatbelt laws came in the mid-80s. Even in the 90s is was common to ride in the back of a truck -- just lay down so you don't get caught. I had friends who had Brats and have sat in the back many times -- including during a snowstorm.
Love these fun videos! Great job guys! Absolutely a fun and hilarious video, one of your all time best! Makes for fun upbeat start to the weekend seeing these fun videos on a Saturday morning. Thanks guys!
Nissan and Toyota didn't have US assembly in the '70s, the workaround they used was that the Chicken Tax only applied to completed vehicles (note the Type 2 VW is unibody) so they imported their trucks as cab-and-chassis and the beds flatpacked separately in bulk, put the beds together and mounted them at dockside facilities.
My buddy bought one of those when I was a boy (50 years ago) when he had a contract with Canada Post to deliver mail to the Rural Routes. It was cheap, didn't burn a lot of gas and had all wheel drive. There wasn't much else at that time that ticked all those boxes.
In college, a friend had a BRAT with its original seats+seat belts. We went off-roading (rally-style) in the desert in it regularly. Sometimes with an extra two people sitting loose in the bed, too. :-D And on one of those trips, I was in one of the seats, and a girl I was interested in was "loose in the bed" and during a bump-and-curve, she did land on me and ask to be held to keep her in the bed, so……. (Sadly, this was two days before summer break, and she didn't come back the next fall.) (5:00 - My wife and I did get chauffeured in a vintage 1950 Rolls Royce at our wedding!)
We use to put a bunch of friends in the back of our trucks and hit all the bumps along the beach in south texas. Throwing a few out sometimes cause they would sit in the bed rails. No one was ever really hurt cause we never went that fast down the beach. My friend had a Subaru Brat and I has a Ford Courier. We would run them pretty hard down the beach when playing around. Of course without rear passengers.
Calling that DUMB? Man, here in South Africa a white small business owner would pack 4 or 5 of his black workers in the back. And they are happy they don't need to walk. We see that every day a dozen times. And there are no seats, even less seatbelts.
Ah, the memories. I had a 78 and a 79 Brat. The motors are durable, if you catch a CV joint before it goes out they're rebuildable, that's the clicking from the front end. There aren't any aftermarket rims for that year really so you have to get creative for terrain tires. The roll bar in that looked nothing like the roll bar in mine as it went above the level of the cab to a point that I could sit back there comfortably with the headrest set in its highest position which would also extend above the level of the cab. I also had the topper as well. When you looked under the front end I noticed that it is missing the skid plate which made those things work like a big ski over mud holes when going fast enough. Unfortunately I lost all of my Subaru collection with the 2003 Cedar Fire in San Diego county Southern California. They're an incredibly easy to work on vehicle. I had more than once going around corners and spinning a 360 in those on pavement but they never flipped, not a really top heavy vehicle. They ran on muddy fire roads without issue also. I could tell some stories but I won't. Fun times.
We loved the BRAT. My Dad had one and absolutely had a blast in the jump seats. But like you said they where removed and lost to time. But while they where there they where fun. And my brother even put speakers in the side of the bed. You just have to be open to the experience. And look at all the fun you can really have.
I remember those trucks and thinking it was strange to have seats in the bed. But don't remember seeing all that harness stuff on any of them. I grew up in the era when if you were a kid and your dad drove a pickup, you bet your butt you'd be sitting in the bed whenever we went anywhere. We loved it. We went down the highway 75-80 mph with the wind in our hair on short and long trips. Just never stand up!
These were known as a "Jiffy-ru" in Australia, Jiffy being a brand of fire lighters here. This is mainly due to the y pipe on the exhaust system, which really good at collecting long dry grass, which would soon catch fire due to the heat of the exhaust.
The seats were a ploy to circumvent a punitive tariff on light trucks known as the Chicken tax. The plastic seats in the cargo bed allowed Subaru to classify the BRAT as a passenger car, rather than as a light truck. This significantly reduced the costs of importing BRATS to North America, as passenger cars were charged a 2.5% import tariff, while light trucks were charged a ten times higher 25% import tariff.
disappointing these 2 didn't know that. Also disappointing younger folks think it's odd to ride in the back of a pickup. See how easily we're given up our freedom to government regulation under the guise of 'safety'. If the government says it's For Your Own Good, there's your sign it's fascism.
I laughed through the complete video, GREAT job guys !!
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@TFLclassicsIn other words they were getting "cock blocked" 🤣
It was the 70's. We rode in the bed of pickups all the time. Dad kept a wooden bench in the bed for us to sit on. The Brat seemed like an upgrade verses just sitting on the floor.
Same here. And we never put a tailgate down to get in the back. You put your foot on the bumper or climb over the side by stepping on the tire!
@@jamesgreen5560to be fair my dads 1993 Nissan pickup was not nearly as tall as any truck nowadays
same, but early 80s. And we were well under 10. Dad knew how to take it easy with kids in the back, and we were not so stupid as to jump out. Also, went on more than one "hay ride" with a load of kids and hay bales to sit on, for a sorta slow tour of a farm or something like fall trees or christmas lights. Later in HS, when we would "cruise" main street, particularly poor types might over load the back of a pickup, particularly in summer.
All gone, traded for instagram and teektok. Stupid laws.
Best friend in HS took a set of these and threw them in the back of his 80's Toyota pickup. Cops would stop of regularly to ask, 'Is that legal??,' and it was! Rode in the back for a 4 hour drive down the highway and it was the most miserable car ride of my life. I didn't know you could get sunburned while being so cold at the exact same time....
A road in the back of the truck, most of the 80s, without a seat of any kind never got pulled over for it. I'm pretty sure right in the back of the truck was still legal in the 80s.
@@mikebelcher5111in Florida you can still do it long as your 18+ and your back is straight along the cab and you are not elevated
@@naturedetectiveminecraft6362 and you're not alive
@@mikebelcher5111cops in the 1980s didn't care until the safety belt 1990s came along.
@chrishultgren777 still legal though
My dad was a Subaru tech since 1980. I rode in the back of a Brat many times as a kid. Very fond memories.
Growing up in the sixties, it was normal for people to ride in the back of the truck. My whole little league team was fit in the back of the pickup to go get ice cream after a game.
In the rural areas of Mexico you drink beer and travel sitting on the edge !😅
Exactly. No “seats” never mind seat belts !
Good times, before all those safety regulations…
back when kids were adults
I spent most of my pre 16 years riding in the back of a truck. We could leave high school at noon for lunch so there would be a whole load of guys going down town for lunch. I learned to absorb bumps stand not on a motorcycle but in the back of a truck. Plus as the gate opener on farms you rode on the tailgate. The cab of the truck was like the big table at family dinners.
That's actually still not completely abnormal in much of the US South...
My mom had a '79 BRAT when I was a kid. My friends and I loved riding in the back. Many trips were spent back there.
Im 55, we rode in the back of pickup trucks, back dash of cars, back of station wagons..... no seat belts... love your videos especially the Model T ones since I have one.
UP HILL! BOTH WAYS!
And that was when we were kids!! Parents didn't have to worry about "child endangerment ". Now if kids aren't strapped in 15 different ways and wrapped in bubble wrap, the parents get arrested and tossed in jail.
In the Midwest we still did that in the 80s and 90s
People that give up freedom for safety deserve and will receive neither- Ben Franklin
@@enz6312 That's because the ones that died can't talk. Survivorship bias is real.
In the early 80s, my mom‘s boyfriend had one of these. I recall riding around town by myself in the back of that thing. I was around four years old and I absolutely loved it. Safe no. Fun… yes!
I’m from China and I vividly remember in the late 90s our elementary school put us 30 kids at the bed of a huge cargo truck for a field trip. It was all fun and normal back then. It would be a liability nightmare today.
If I remember correctly, the Suzuki Sidekick was another vehicle affected by the Chicken Tax. It had to be "imported" WITH back seats. (possibly for the same reason as the BRAT. But there was a location in the US that would remove the seats and ship them back to the factory to be used again. Then the Car was shipped to the Dealers. There was no requirement for the car to be "SOLD" with the seats installed.
13:18 'We look like kids strapped into a shopping cart' LMAO what a great line and so accurate.
We grew up riding in the back of pickup truck beds.
No seats, no seatbelt let alone a three point harness.
We just sat on the wheel well.
Yes, we were stupid, yes we weren't thinking of safety and yes we had fun.
And yes, we were lucky we never got thrown out of these old pickup truck beds and died.
Safety was always last in the 70's.
Fun video
This was our families only transportation in 1979-81. It was my mom and 3 kids in Maine. Yup Maine! It was so cold one winter that we had to put a shop light with a 100 watt bulb under the car so the oil was warm enough to start the car. I was the eldest child at home so I got to sit in the front. I actually learned to drive stick in that car. I loved that car, there are so many great memories!!!
This episode is hysterical and Alex is the man. The screams, the awkwardness, the pointing & laughing, too funny!
Looking forward to the next episode. Perhaps car spotting from the rear seats of a BRAT?
This is hilarious video. A 79 Subaru Brat was my first car and I had people in the back all through high school until upgraded to a 83 cj7 which probably wasn’t much safer
Mine was a 1978 Subaru wagon that was the same as the Brat. It used the same body and front end you could see where the panels would have been cut out to make the Brat version.
These seats were put into the back of Brats to get around the 25% 'Chicken Tax' on imported light trucks. The seats made the Brat a passenger vehicle instead of a light truck and not subject to the tax. These seats were usually removed at the dealership before rhe vehicle was sold.
This tax still exists today.
Yup. And I believe the upcoming grenadier truck will be subject to it.
I read this in Butthead's voice. xD
Ford is being *wrongfully* sued right now because they put extremely cheap seats in the back of the Made In Turkey Transit Connect to get around the Chicken Tax.
So the rear seat loophole has been utilized as recently as 2010.
I’m half way through this video and I’m convinced you should keep the Brat forever and make a weekly video just like this. By far the funniest video I’ve watched in a long, long time. This is so great!
Hilarious video, guys! I remember seeing these Brats around back in the day; I never saw anyone actually ride in the back of one. It’s really tiny back there & I had no idea how little room there actually is!
Ahh these guys are so precious . Riding in the back of pickups was quite common before the days of the quad-extendo cab trucks that are so common now. I had to ride in the back of an old ford range w my brother through the Appalachian mountains in the rain.
Alex having the time of his life, trying to freak out or embarrass the guys 🤣
"Who would you talk into riding into these seats?"
"Bro, hold my beer"🍺
Kids. Until recently it was normal, especially in rural areas.
We weren't so obsessed with safety back then. We sat in the back of trucks all the time. Vans as well, sat on the floor on foam.
You got foam? Lucky! We had bare metal! 😂
We've fallen so far
@@coryernewein
The Nanny State was the end of thinking.
@@Torsee critical thinking and personal accountability have become almost as rare as hens teeth for sure.
@@coryernewein Fallen into an idiocracy.
This me reminds me of my dad's pickup bed story he loves to tell. When he was a kid he had to travel from LA to Lake Havasu, AZ in the back of a '65 Dodge pickup because that was the only vehicle his parents had at the time and since he was the older brother he had to endure 100F Temps and the baking sun for hours and hours...he saw the lord that day 😂😂
You have to transport yourself back to the 70s when riding in the back of the pickup was a common thing. The least safe was probalby the teanagers driving with the bed full of friends heading to a drive in or the lake. People didn't see safety the same back then, we were not as worried about it. I remember when it wasn't a law to wear a seatbelt at all, people resisted when the law was passed.
Yup many days just ridin around in the back as a kid
And a lot of people died or got hurt to stupid stuff back then.
I'd love TFL to make a video of calling and talking to their insurance provider, asking if it's OK to ride in the back and the insurance companies' response.
You need some yellow helmets, and on the back paint KC, so your heads look like off road lights!!😂
Genius!😂
Having seats and seat belts was a step up in safety from just piling into the back of a pickup truck. Also, if you were a kid, that was probably a fun experience.
I wish they bring back small economical pickups like this....
Remember the 80s Toyota pickups? 99 down 99 a mo
tough little trucks
Great work together, guys! Excellent content, great laughs! Brats are cool!
A buddy gave a couple friends a ride home from school one weekend. He had a BRAT and I lost the coin toss and got the back seat. That was a 400 mile round trip but I only had the back one way, the other friend got it on the way back. He had a topper on it so I didn't have the trouble with the wind and dirt. But you had to sit all hunched over so it sure wasn't a fun trip.
Funny video. Next want to see Nathan and Andre in the back seats while Roman and Mr. Truck go up the Ike.
This is the best TFL anything video in years. No sponsorship plugs, no being intentionally nice about cars that you feel otherwise about, etc. Just good wholsome fun.
As a Gen-Xer, we drank from water hoses, played on steel playground equipment on asphalt playgrounds, rode our bikes without helmets and jumped on planks of wood propped up on bricks... and YES, we LOVED riding in the back of trucks (usually without seats)... as to the BRAT itself, rode in it, didn't bother with the lap belts, because most kids would ride without seats to begin with.
In the 70s and 80s, kids would PREFER to ride in the back of a truck then in an stuffy cab. Somehow... we're still alive today!
Yeah, and your gen lost a TON of people back then
@@bldontmatter5319 coough cough tide pods and condom snorting challenge
Yes we would rather ride in the back because the cab was full of cigarette smoke
@bldontmatter5319 no... no we didn't... your generation is just scared of your own shadow.
This +70yr old agrees with these thoughts. He routinely rode in the back of his dads 1930s/40s? Chevy truck, and played with mercury AND asbestos , and lives to thumb his nose at the Nanny State
Hi guys, David here from Tasmania, Australia. Great video, fun all the way. How ironic is it that 2 of the ads shown through the video were for new Suburu SUV's. A neighbour 2 doors down from me still has, and drives regularly, one of these utes. (thats what they are called downunder) Here in Australia they were marketed as the "Brumby". A pretty rare car these days, yet when we first moved to Tasmania in 2007, there was 4 of them in the town I live in.
Considering the title, I thought Nathan would be driving!
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And the 26:00 comes along and the title rings true.
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Kidding, man!
That Subaru is rhino guard then painted? That’s cool. It looks good. That model Brat the Gen 1 also had two canopy options you could get. A high top and a low top. Both versions were to accommodate a high or low roll bar if it was equipped in the vehicle. This car shown is a low top roll bar. With a high roll bar you can sit rain free under the canopy, and would have windows like a typical canopy for air flow. And for no reason you could get a front bumper with a winch or snow blow attachment.
It's tinted raptor liner lol I sprayed this just before this guy bought it lol. And I called it the scoobarooo brat as it's mystery machine colors.
Kids used to ride in the back of pickup trucks all the time, without seats. This was a big upgrade at the time. It was also useful for backing into a space at a drive-in movie theater.
Of course, a lot of kids were lost when the truck hit a large bump or was involved in an accident.
I own a Brat and people love it. Men, women, girls, boys will wave and smile, it generates a lot of positive energy and comments. Some people don't even know what it is but others will tell me about a Brat memory from their past and always with a big smile on their face.
I don't have the seats though.........
It gave flashbacks to my childhood. We rode in the back of anything in the sixties, seventies and eighties. My friend had a Brat he had a custom cap made for it . We would sit in back as children we thought it was the coolest thing 😂. When I got my first vehicle it was a 79 Datsun pickup . I put a cap on it and then put some van seats in the back. We thought we were so smart and I also put cup holders in . I don't think cup holders were put in vehicles until the nineties. You had to be a tough kid when you grew up in the sixties seventies and eighties. 😂
I love the colours. 5:41 Ronald Reagan did the same thing to motorcycles in early 80s because Hardley spat the dummy because nobody wanted to buy their bikes anymore.
In the 1980s most of us didnt have the luxury of seats in the back of trucks! You loved riding with dogs in the back!! LoL
Love seeing you youngins bringing back the memories of my youth !
There was an optional wind fairing on the roof available to make passengers more comfortable. Still no rollover protection.
AMAZING video gents!!! I loved it, especially cause as a young kid I used to ride in my Aunties Brat, in those same seats here in hawai'i
The seats were added to avoid the "chicken tax" (look it up) on small imported pickups. Nearly everyone took those seats out and threw them away. Never actually meant to be used.
The chicken tax was explained in the video, too.
They mention that in the video
@@anthonyc1883 good. I was afraid they were ignorant. Didn't want to watch the whole thing right now
this is the best you guys have produced with the people that count most and the whole video was shits and giggles buzzing around in the back of Subaru Brat, my neighbour had i think it was the 3rd or 4th one sold in Manitoba and we went camping in it and his younger brother and i rode in those seats almost 2 hours to the lake camp ground at 70 mph and people were waving at us and smiling away probably thinking we were nuts, then a Ford F100 passed us with half a dozen teenagers in the box drinking and smoking weed hollering at us and laughing, it was a good weekend ,camping no rain and they just fogged the campgrounds so there wasn't too many mosquitos, good memories and good times , Nathan driving put it to its limits very quickly 😂
I'm 48 and probably spent more time in the bed of a truck, on a package shelf or in the rear hatch than I did in an actual seat before I got my license
Same here...our 1st wagon didnt even come with seatbelts. We would stand up in the rear seat all the time.
Rode minimikes with no helmets, drank from the hose bib, played football in the street.
No kid ever started this "omg i dont feel safe" crap...they woulda been beat up
We did this in the early 90s as kids. It was in a bed, no straps, just sitting there holding on. It was so much fun. It’s not bad Tommy. Lol
really? I'm in my 60's. We used to ride standing in the back of old pickups (with an FBI agent driving no less), we survived....and that with seats is way safer...safer is relative...
You've never seen a Rumble Seat? Now THAT was dangerous. Uh, let me introduce you to my sidecar... 😎
Yup. Makes me wanna break out the lawn darts. I hate the government telling me what I can and can not do. Pussies.
It's funny that you mention the Rumble Seat. My wife and I were on our way to the store yesterday, and happened to see an old model car with one installed. I about lost it when we saw that. My wife had never seen that model of car, and didn't know what a Rumble Seat was. I knew, because I was raised by my grandmother, who told me many stories about "incidents" in that Rumble Seat.
I'm 57, so I also grew up in the "rode in the back of a pickup truck" era. One of the wildest ones was when 8 teenagers (including myself), were sat in the back of a pickup truck heading to a Civil War Reenactment up in Pennsylvania.... along with the 8 of us, was a full size canon that was strapped down, and a cooler full of beer that we not only had access to, but raided the entire 3 hour drive up from Baltimore.
The canon and the cooler were secured in.... unlike the 8 of us, who were free to move around.
I want to say that was 1982, which would have made me 15 at the time. The "legal" drinking age was 18 at that time, and IIRC, I was the oldest of the teenagers in the back of that truck. Everyone else was a year or two younger than I was. But yeah.... 8 drunk teenagers, a canon, and a cooler full of beer packed into the bed of a pickup truck on a road trip. Somehow, we all lived through that insane weekend. Also, there was another 10 cases of beer in the other vehicle that was hauling the other adults of our crew.
What a time to be alive....
A friend at high school had a Brat. I rode in the back many times. I have also ridden in the back of many pickups over my years too.
All of that was destroyed by a Ford Courier and a kid named Alan Cole. He drove his little truck filled with high schoolers down Patuxent Road in Maryland and missed a corner and killed several kids. Maryland passed a law that no one could ever ride in a pickup bed ever again. It was called the Alan B. Cole law.
That's how my late uncle passed well, but it was off-road and the truck hit a rut and he popped out.
Goofy vids and weekends go together like Beavis and Butthead...which you two should have dressed as for this vid! It definitely would have gone viral.
30:28 i just noticed it has the scooby doo colors 😭🤣🤣 i knew something was familiar about it 🤣
Ahhhh you are the first person to understand it lol. I sprayed this car it's tinted raptor liner and it was a theme build I called it the scoobaroo brat I even had a huge scooby doo to go in the bed of it but they didn't want it lol.
Literally no one back then ever asked "why the heck are there seats in the back?" or deemed the word "brat" to be socially anything at all. We weren't soft.
I would love it if Tommy and Case would do more of the bigger videos. These two are much more fun to watch and you can tell they research everything before recording.
Roman and Nathan are getting increasingly harder to watch. And more often than not, they just start complaining about things and I often see them making more mistakes.
Pansies! I can’t tell you how many times I rode in the back of a pickup truck. I even rode in the back of my uncles Brat. I loved it. It is a cherished memory. I didn’t die or get hurt. Chill out.
We had brains and common sense even as kids back then.
Rarely heard of anyone getting hurt riding in the back, it was more like dogs that would fall/jump out.
@@gordocarbo Sink or swim - it's what keeps the gene pool clean.
@@gordocarbo You yourself can have all the sense in the world but if someone T-bones you and you flip you're 100% dead and there won't be anything you can do about it.
Oh please. You feel strong until someone slams into you while youre in the back, and you get ejected 50 feet.
@@SmolPotatowo Okay, but you're creating a specific scenario. Looking at the broader picture, accident rates haven't declined much over the years. If anything, the FA rate is starting to tick upward, which goes against common notions of car safety.
This could be explained by a tradeoff. Sure, cars are theoretically safer in an accident because of more laws and crash safety standards, but that likely has lead to drivers to becoming complacent and overconfident in their ability to avoid or survive accidents, resulting in drivers taking more risks, being more careless in general, or just having lesser skills overall.
50 years ago, the sense of danger is what created common sense, making people more careful and responsible drivers. If you wanted to be safe on the road, it was not up to the car or the laws to you keep safe, it was up to the individuals to adhere to a common culture of driver safety.
From the days when you needed to be strong to survive your childhood
It explains the drifting into idiocracy.
@@AkioWasRightno, smart people could be hurt riding in this too. Don't be silly
@@bldontmatter5319 Your comment only supports the point.
you can definitely tell how many people today would not have survived childhood.
@@bldontmatter5319 maybe you can live in a plastic bubble so the world doesn't hurt you.
When you consider we were all riding in the back of the truck anyway back then, the seats and lap belt were a huge safety upgrade. It finally became against the law for regular passengers to ride loose in the back of the truck on February 1st, 2000 in my area.
This video is a clear illustration of your youth and you certainly did not grow up before the 80s.
Riding in the bed of a pickup truck with common. The great part of the El Camino or Ranchero and even the Brat were that they sat at car heights and you did not have to climb up and into the bed. It was just easier. Where the bigger trucks were designed more for work, they did not come with jump seats and bench seats in the bed. However, just like later in years when someone could buy a Ford Explorer SportTrac with a grocery getting 5 ft bed, a Honda "truck" with sloped bedsides so you can't fit a common topper or use 2×4s across the bed to haul something bigger, or what are the modern Maverick where the pointless bed is the size of some cars trunks, there is a purpose for each of the differences. It's not something to mock and laugh at; that just shows your lack of understanding.
I remembered riding in the back of my dad's truck without seats and later on he bolted a bench seat in the bed.❤❤❤ good times and memories. This episode is funny😂😂😂
Most headroom and legroom in the history of the automobile?
The seats were added to the back to cut the tax cost on the US would charge a way bigger interest on imparts that weren't 4 seater so this was there way around it
Built during the time before helicopter moms, internet, Purel, and bubble wrap for children.
And couldnt wait to to outside and play...sitting indoors was pure hell for us
Almost never saw other kids that werent skinny
There was a 100% tariff on small truck imports, so they made it a passenger vehicle to avoid the tax...
When you judge a car’s interstate speed but it was built for a 55 mph interstate.
I love this little thing. My parents really wanted one back in the early 80's. From what my mom said they settled on a brand new 1982 2WD Subaru GL wagon. It unfortunately got repoed a few months after they got it when my dad was between jobs and they missed ONE payment!
My aunt had one brand new. I've never seen adults use it. It was always kids riding in the back. Us kids used to love riding back there. The Brat was a luxury to us kids because we normally wouldn't have seats riding in the back of other trucks.
You guys are basically the next generation of car talk, i love it.
It wasn’t Dumb!
There were less people on the road.
Those on the road were marginally better at driving.
No STUPID Infotainment Systems!
You were in the moment.
This is only dumb to the bubble wrapped millennials and Gen Zers who grew up with helmets and need pads to walk to school, who had to wear harnesses while on the playground. This was the best way to drive to the lake!
Kids strapped to the back of a shopping cart😂😂😂
I almost choked on my lunch.
Growing up in the 70s and 80's we rode in the back of pickup trucks all the time. I remember going on camping trips from Southern California to Yellowstone riding in the back of a 72 Ford F-100 pickup all the way there laying down looking up at the stars on a bed roll and sleeping bag for a pillow. The truck was only a single cab.
These were sold as a "Brumby" in Australia, we did not get the rear seats. They had a reputation as being a very tough little car.
They were, most who lived in mountains/snow had one or an old Jeep for winter.
I love how Tommy is flat out panicking, while Kase is just like "yeah, this is a bad idea. *laugh shrug*"
amazing how people have become such pussies in just 40 years.
"What passenger would you ever get to agree to do this?"
"Not one ya loved. Or wanted to see alive."
Here in Australia, it's called the Subaru Brumby. They don't put the seats in the back, but they put the little pegs for the hold-down straps on a tonneau cover lining the edge of the tray.
This is the best analysis of the chicken tax I've ever seen! Wonderful! Also the review of state law with Colorado State Patrol urging you, whatever state law may actually say, not to go in the back! And how did you manage not to lose your sunglasses?
it's not illegal to ride in the back of a van or truck here, as long as all the seatbelts that are available are used. Last I knew.
I'm 38 now... learned how to drive stick in one of these when I was 12.. 1st to the tip of the drive way... reverse back the way I came... love it
Didn't know that Kace is from Ga. Hello fellow neighbor NW Ga here near Chattanooga
They sold these utes as the Brumby in Australia. And they only put those seats in the back for the US market. Riding in the back of utes was pretty popular here many years ago. My dad spent some time growing up riding in the back of his neighbour’s FE Holden ute which had a canopy on it (you referred to a canopy as a “topper” in this video) whenever my grandfather borrowed it to travel to Melbourne from the Victorian Goldfields, and I spent part of my childhood riding in the back of my dad’s Mazda B1800, and my daughter did spend part of her childhood riding in the back of my Ford XG Falcon ute, then my Ford BA Falcon ute in paddocks. It’s illegal to have anyone ride in the back of utes anywhere in Australia these days though.
Also, that ute looks like it’s been painted in Upol Raptor, the worst thing you could paint any car with that isn’t used for hardcore off-roading.
Believe it or not ' Subaru Brats were very popular during the late seventies. The back seats had 2 grab handles each, with just a lap belt. Check out the Subi commercial with the Brat on the Beach ... they were so much fun!
I think Clint Eastwood said it best...
"I Miss the Good Ole Days When Everybody Wasn't Such a Pussy"
As a North Georgia man who grew up in upas a kid in the 80s, I rode in the back of trucks all the time! My favorite was the seats in my dad’s BRAT!
tanaka....the people that brought you built in hand grenades in the safety bags.....LOL
A buddy of mine had one back when I was a teenager, and we had a blast riding around in it. At that time, you'd often see pickups driving around with all the kids riding in the bed, so having the seats in the Brat was considered a safety feature!
Case and Tommy are a great duo. I love these adventures and their conversation.
My father had 3 of these. The New Zealand spec did not have the backseats. They were a great farm runabout and good for carting dogs or doing fence maintenance or other light duty jobs. Being so light they didn't make pasture damage the way a tractor did.
I'm 34 and I have awesome memories of my older brother and I riding in those jump seats while my dad drove.
GenX here. I remember riding in the back of my dad's pickup truck down the 101 Freeway in the Bay Area in the 70s or early 80s. I think it was legal until seatbelt laws came in the mid-80s. Even in the 90s is was common to ride in the back of a truck -- just lay down so you don't get caught. I had friends who had Brats and have sat in the back many times -- including during a snowstorm.
Love these fun videos! Great job guys! Absolutely a fun and hilarious video, one of your all time best!
Makes for fun upbeat start to the weekend seeing these fun videos on a Saturday morning.
Thanks guys!
Nissan and Toyota didn't have US assembly in the '70s, the workaround they used was that the Chicken Tax only applied to completed vehicles (note the Type 2 VW is unibody) so they imported their trucks as cab-and-chassis and the beds flatpacked separately in bulk, put the beds together and mounted them at dockside facilities.
My buddy bought one of those when I was a boy (50 years ago) when he had a contract with Canada Post to deliver mail to the Rural Routes. It was cheap, didn't burn a lot of gas and had all wheel drive. There wasn't much else at that time that ticked all those boxes.
In college, a friend had a BRAT with its original seats+seat belts. We went off-roading (rally-style) in the desert in it regularly. Sometimes with an extra two people sitting loose in the bed, too. :-D
And on one of those trips, I was in one of the seats, and a girl I was interested in was "loose in the bed" and during a bump-and-curve, she did land on me and ask to be held to keep her in the bed, so……. (Sadly, this was two days before summer break, and she didn't come back the next fall.)
(5:00 - My wife and I did get chauffeured in a vintage 1950 Rolls Royce at our wedding!)
We use to put a bunch of friends in the back of our trucks and hit all the bumps along the beach in south texas. Throwing a few out sometimes cause they would sit in the bed rails.
No one was ever really hurt cause we never went that fast down the beach.
My friend had a Subaru Brat and I has a Ford Courier.
We would run them pretty hard down the beach when playing around. Of course without rear passengers.
Calling that DUMB? Man, here in South Africa a white small business owner would pack 4 or 5 of his black workers in the back. And they are happy they don't need to walk. We see that every day a dozen times. And there are no seats, even less seatbelts.
Back in the '70s this was a normal event.
back in the 70s we weren't a bunch of pussies.
Ah, the memories. I had a 78 and a 79 Brat. The motors are durable, if you catch a CV joint before it goes out they're rebuildable, that's the clicking from the front end. There aren't any aftermarket rims for that year really so you have to get creative for terrain tires. The roll bar in that looked nothing like the roll bar in mine as it went above the level of the cab to a point that I could sit back there comfortably with the headrest set in its highest position which would also extend above the level of the cab. I also had the topper as well. When you looked under the front end I noticed that it is missing the skid plate which made those things work like a big ski over mud holes when going fast enough. Unfortunately I lost all of my Subaru collection with the 2003 Cedar Fire in San Diego county Southern California. They're an incredibly easy to work on vehicle. I had more than once going around corners and spinning a 360 in those on pavement but they never flipped, not a really top heavy vehicle. They ran on muddy fire roads without issue also. I could tell some stories but I won't. Fun times.
We loved the BRAT. My Dad had one and absolutely had a blast in the jump seats. But like you said they where removed and lost to time. But while they where there they where fun. And my brother even put speakers in the side of the bed. You just have to be open to the experience. And look at all the fun you can really have.
I remember those trucks and thinking it was strange to have seats in the bed. But don't remember seeing all that harness stuff on any of them. I grew up in the era when if you were a kid and your dad drove a pickup, you bet your butt you'd be sitting in the bed whenever we went anywhere. We loved it. We went down the highway 75-80 mph with the wind in our hair on short and long trips. Just never stand up!
These were known as a "Jiffy-ru" in Australia, Jiffy being a brand of fire lighters here. This is mainly due to the y pipe on the exhaust system, which really good at collecting long dry grass, which would soon catch fire due to the heat of the exhaust.
The seats were a ploy to circumvent a punitive tariff on light trucks known as the Chicken tax. The plastic seats in the cargo bed allowed Subaru to classify the BRAT as a passenger car, rather than as a light truck. This significantly reduced the costs of importing BRATS to North America, as passenger cars were charged a 2.5% import tariff, while light trucks were charged a ten times higher 25% import tariff.
disappointing these 2 didn't know that. Also disappointing younger folks think it's odd to ride in the back of a pickup. See how easily we're given up our freedom to government regulation under the guise of 'safety'. If the government says it's For Your Own Good, there's your sign it's fascism.