Subaru's BRAT: revisited

I would imagine that anyone born after 1980 would not know what a Subaru BRAT was.  The only recent cultural references have been in the TV show 'My Name is Earl' (the character Joy owned a 1985 BRAT), and the character Rex drove one in the 2004 movie 'Napoleon Dynamite', an '82 model.
.. Aside from that, they are a largely forgotten footnote in the rich history of auto design.
Subaru only produced them from 1978 to 1994, a 16 year run, but stopped importing them to the USA in '87.

BRAT was actually an acronym for Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter.
The BRAT was available in many parts of the world, including Africa and Australia, where they were favored in the outback.  The Aussies called it the 'Brumby'.

 













When I was just out of high school my pal Chuck had a new 1978 BRAT.  They were actually cheap to buy new, especially with the minimum wage going as far as it did then.  The BRAT was preferable to a Toyota or Datsun pickup because it not only came with standard 4-wheel drive, but it was cooler looking and a blast to drive. They only pushed about 80hp, but were super light, nimble off-road, and they had 2 jump-seats in the rear bed, enabling room for 4 people, plus all the gear you'd need for a day at the Indiana Dunes or a swim at the quarry.  Chuck's BRAT was taupe colored, a 4-speed stick, with the standard stripe kit on each side.  For summertime fun, it was the next best thing to owning a dune buggy.

Over the decades since,  I've occasionally wondered why Subaru hasn't brought back the BRAT.  Their 'Baja', an awkward family wagon with a short back bed, seemed like a weak effort, .. but there really hasn't been another vehicle that even falls into the BRAT wheelhouse.  Hyundai is producing their 'Santa Cruz', which is about as close as it's gotten so far.

.. But it still ain't the BRAT.

I finally had to address this bee in my bonnet, so I came up with my own update of this lost gem.

Fisher-Price: the Fold-n-Go Workbench!

This project brings back memories when I look at it, as do many projects throughout the years.  It may also trigger the memory of some readers, it goes back to when many were just kids.
Often it's the project itself that leaves an impression on me, sometimes it's about other things going on in my life at the time.  In this case, I had just moved to Oak Park, Illinois after spending 9 years living in Philadelphia.  We were also expecting our second child and I was busy trying to get work while settling into my attic studio, then recently completed.  It was a great space, well laid out, and I was champing at the bit to give it a road test.

It was around this time that I started getting work from Fisher-Price in East Aurora.
A few of the designers there started calling on me pretty regularly and I really hit my stride in delivering solid work in a quick fashion.  The Fold-n-Go Workbench was one of those early experiences of a project coming and going fast, with the end product turning out pretty close to my design. Like in most cases, if there wasn't a foam-core model all I had to work with was a thumbnail and a description of the functions. 
If there were any rough passes for this they're long gone.  I don't recall doing anything beyond a couple of clean line drawings followed by a rendering, which at the time would be sent via Fed-Ex.  I had a new Mac G4 but was just starting to scan and email jpegs,  I wasn't fully versed in Photoshop. In fact, the rendering below is a re-render done digitally some time back, since the original was sent off to Fisher-Price.
.. I do remember the original was rendered in marker, something you don't see much anymore.

 




























Here is how it turned out back then when it was produced by Fisher-Price;

.. And as of this writing, my younger of 2 children is on his own and in college.

The years do fly.

Disney: Cinderella Coach Play Tent!

While this may have been another quick job for Disney Consumer Products, it was a load of fun to do.  I've always liked pop-up hoop tents, whether for children's play or adult camping.  I was tapped to bring that feature to a Cinderella pumpkin coach, which did have its challenges.
I didn't necessarily have to design the prototype but it did need to have a degree of plausibility in execution.

Again, this was a quick one.  I had a next-day delivery deadline so not much preliminary exploration was done.  I went from approved rough to renderings.  The figures were added afterward to show some scale.

I came across the above while cleaning through my computer hard drive a couple of years ago. I had neglected to look this one up, to see if it was eventually produced by DCP, and if so; how it turned out.

I think it turned out pretty well, if simplified for cost & function;