It’s the seats that really make it for me: they’re such a wonderfully absurd loophole-jumping ploy, as they made the BRAT into a passenger car instead of a pickup truck, and as such weren’t subject to the cruel 25% Chicken Tax. The lack of seatbelts is exciting, but even better are those terror-grip handles with their BMX-style rubber grips, designed to be held, white knuckled, as your shirtless, chain-smoking cousin drives like a maniac, splashing into the deepest possible puddles and potholes in the gravel roads behind your uncle’s property. That drain hole in the middle there likely works for urine as well as rainwater, as I bet has been tested many, many times over the decades. One of my earliest memories is riding in the bed of my dad’s 1952 Chevy 3100 pickup circa 1974 or so. I had an earache at the time, so I was pressing my ear against the back of the cab to keep the wind from blowing into it too hard. I can kinda imagine, given the brand’s mojo, the Jeep Gladiator having a similar setup as an option. But I also imagine if even allowed, to pass regulatory requirements, they’d have to be permanently affixed/not removable, and not enough people would opt for it since it would take up the already limited bed space. Too bad, as it could wind up eventually being an Aztec camp tent-level curiosity. Time to repeal the lame-ass chicken tax, and also accept the international UNECE standards too. You gotta hand it so Subaru with this thing, crazy configuration, and crazy name. Looking back on it as an adult, all of the things my friend’s dad did back then, he most certainly was NOT a safety conscious individual, but that Brat was still cool as shit though. If you’re using them before necessary, you’re only making the driver nervous.
