In a move that appears like a late April Fools' prank, MINI has revealed a pickup version of the Cooper S Paceman. The Paceman Adventure loses its rear seats in favor of a small bed and is beefed up for off-road driving. Useful or just plain weird – you decide.
The Paceman Adventure isn't a preview of a potential production MINI truck. It's a project that MINI used to nurture young, learning minds. MINI instructors worked on the vision with their apprentices in BMW's plants in Munich and Dingolfing.
The Paceman may seem like a completely random candidate for a pickup conversion, but there was at least a little method to the madness. The team chose the 184-hp Cooper S Paceman ALL4 for its rugged (for a MINI) all-wheel drive design. To add some grit, MINI increased the ground clearance, hooked up a snorkel-style roof air intake, added a set of off-road tires and threw a roof rack with off-road lighting on top.
MINI says that the converted car would be at home on gravel roads, desert trails, muddy thoroughfares and even the occasional river crossing. It doesn't exactly pack the haul space of a full-size pickup, but its bed would come in handy for smaller items, such as a toolbox or luggage.
While the MINI Paceman Adventure may seem completely foreign to those familiar only with recent MINI vehicles, a diminutive, two-door Mini pickup (seen above) did once roam roadways. The model was launched in 1961, back when Mini was part of British Motor Corporation. It was one of several body alternatives offered in Mini's early days, also including a station wagon and a van, and sold close to 60,000 units over its two decades on the market.
MINI is quite clear that the Paceman Adventure isn't the start of a Mini Pick-up revival, saying, "The MINI Paceman Adventure is a true one-off and there are no plans for series production."
If you like the vehicle, you might also want to check out the smart for-us – an electric pickup version of the smart fortwo.
Source: BMW/MINI
One thing I was always impressed with for side by side ATV's is they do a pretty impressive job of treating the thing as a platform, they are like giant expensive lego products where you can buy all kinds of different doors/cabs/beds/winches/plows etc. for them.
Modern day "utility" vehicles are really nothing more than larger cars, there generally isn't much utility involved.
One of the biggest challenges I see is people buy vehicles big enough to buy furniture with or store everything they need on vacation and drive them to work every day carrying just themselves. Touring motorcycles deal with this with trailers: http://i.imgur.com/vMZECXv.jpg Even a small camper is possible: http://i.imgur.com/yKZg8B7.jpg
The concept isn't new but I think with the right design(s) there is a lot more potential to solve this problem with enclosed trailers than I have seen. There are trailers out there with rail systems (http://i.imgur.com/P9fmog6.jpg) but I think it's possible to take it another step and make the insides reconfigurable so you could use ratchet straps and wheel chucks or things like beds, kitchens, toolboxes etc. for camping or work.
There were a couple projects that advocated using towed trailers for electric vehicle range extenders. if someone builds standard swappable battery packs like we see with propane today trailers are probably the best way to retrofit them into cars without room and plug in hybrids.