1985 Daihatsu Trek

The Tokyo Motor Show usually throws up more wacky ideas and quirky designs than you’d find at a dozen european events. Daihatsu, among Japan’s smaller makers, begets more than its fair share of concept cars. In 1985, it presented an amazing 32 concepts in Tokyo under a "Small vehicles whith a big dream" banner. Among them, the Trek with its single seat, rugged stance and high ground clearance. It was apparently intended as a pseudo quad-bike, but the seat and steering column droped away to turn the Trek into a comfy single bed, whith a pop-up tent to keep mosquitoes at bay.

It’s a car! It’s a bed! It looks suspiciously like a child’s toy! For the outdoorsman who has everything except a really expensive Big Wheel, there was the Daihatsu Trek. A single-passenger off-road vehicle, the Trek not only allowed drivers to travel to remote areas, it also gave them a place to bed down for the evening. With its collapsible seat, steering wheel, and roll bar, the boxy monstrosity from 1990 offered all the comforts of a really cheap motel room. And while we can’t be sure why the car never made it past the concept stage at Daihatsu, we can only guess members of the off-road focus groups felt silly driving a Transformer.