How A Forgotten Ford Bronco Concept Could Make The Perfect Disguise For A Cybertruck

As a product, is the Cybertruck really good or very bad? Such a question is easy to answer for virtually any other vehicle, but in the case of Tesla’s pickup, it can be hard to get a thoughtful answer from a “regular” person (as in, “not a car enthusiast,” but enthusiasts aren’t immune, either). The Cybertruck’s styling is polarizing, and many people seem to gravitate to the “it’s ugly, so I hate it” pole. Then there’s the association with the controversial Elon Musk, which hurts more than helps, if sales figures are any indication. It seems like the best way to really judge the performance and usefulness of a Cybertruck fairly is to go the Folgers Crystals route: give the truck a disguise, so no pre-judgements are made.

This needn’t be difficult to achieve, as there’s a very cool Ford truck concept from 1981 that Dearborn never built, that might be a perfect costume for this much-maligned EV pickup to put on.

“Build It In Just A Few Weekends”

Dressing up cars in costumes is hardly a new idea. An entire aftermarket industry developed from the late sixties into the eighties that traded on turning rather pedestrian rides into something more exciting and exotic. Tired old Volkswagen Beetles were some of the first cars giving their lives to become mock MG TDs, Porsche 917s, or whatever the “Coyote” in Hardcastle and McCormick was supposed to be. I love the dropped-in Ferrari tach shot and dubbed 308 V8 sounds. DRIVE!!

Once VW Bug values started to rise, the car of choice seemed to be the Pontiac Fiero with its easy-to-remove plastic body panels.

Before Fieros took on collector values themselves, they were ideal sacrificial lambs that could be transformed easily into a mock Ferrari:

Maybe a Lamborghini is more of your style? Say no more!

If that’s not to your tastes, you could choose whatever the mid-engined Superfly Zimmer Quicksilver was supposed to be:

Tesla’s Cybertruck is often sort of disguised in vinyl coverings to give it a different identity from every other also-silver example out there (not to mention cover up the well-known issues with the stainless-steel skin including color mismatch and “oil canning” surface waviness).

With a few more additions, however, we could drastically change the appearance of Cybertruck to the point that it might not be recognizable as a Cybertruck at all. I did just that a while back, where I stuck a whole bunch of plastic parts onto Elon’s controversial rig to make it look like a Lancia Stratos Zero – the awesome concept car from Bertone during their late sixties to early seventies heyday. Well, a sort of bloated Stratos Zero in the vein of an off-roader like a Lamborghini Sterrato.

If you’re trying to replicate something such as a Stratos Zero that really doesn’t have the shapes and proportions of “normal” cars, you could do worse than the Cybertruck.

Yeah, it’s weird, but if you want to drive a Cybertruck that doesn’t look like a Cybertruck, the Stratos FEAR would be your body kit.

You can just smell the fiberglass looking at the schematic picture below; every trip in your converted Cybertruck would give off an aroma reminding you of the boat show.

Still, we don’t have to look to Turin for another fun CyberDisguise- there’s a homegrown historic example I’ve been dying to use.

The Ford In Your Future

Many have commented that the Cybertruck looks a bit like a seventies vision of “the future,” back when we were predicting all of the cool stuff that would be appearing in the year 2000 (boy, would we be disappointed). Unfortunately, the Tesla pickup comes across to many as a cheesy prop made from plywood and tin foil for a cheap sci-fi TV show. There were far better interpretations of a twenty-first-century vehicle from a 1970s standpoint, and it wasn’t just from Italian coachbuilders like Bertone.

Even Dearborn’s Ford had a pretty cool vision of tomorrow at the 1981 Chicago Auto Show with something they called the Montana Lobo (obviously it was in the years before GM co-opted that state’s name for their fake-SUV minivan of the nineties). Like Cybertruck, the Lobo was a very angular and futuristic pickup/ute concoction.

While it shares a bunch of design language with the new-for-1980 “OBS” Ford pickups, it was actually built on what they claim to be a 302-powered 4×4 “pre-1978 Bronco.” Yes, that’s right, you Blue Oval crazies: I hear your souls crying out, since they sacrificed what today is a $100,000-plus classic vehicle to make this weird show car. Who knew?

Strange as it appears, there’s a lot of innovation in this thing, particularly for nearly fifty years ago. Removable T-tops and plexiglass side doors allow cabin access; sliding clear doors behind the front seats open onto a “bed” with sideways-facing couches. A huge overhead wing holds spotlights, and I especially like the voids spaced ahead and behind the rear wheels being used as storage spaces. Even cooler is how the storage spaces aft the rear wheels are boxes that could be removed and carried with you.

The inside reportedly featured digital instruments from the disliked 1980 Thunderbird and even blower-powered ventilated seats decades ahead of when you could actually buy them in a production vehicle. Best of all, the thing just looks damn cool. I mean, kind of goofy in a 1978 Battlestar Galactica sort of way, but cool nonetheless. Certainly, I’d prefer to drive this crazy thing over a silver dumpster, but I’d rather have modern tech underneath instead of the bits from the poor classic first-gen Bronco that gave its life for this. Time for a new CyberCostume! Get ready for CyberLobo.

Space Cowboys, Your Time Is Now

We start by wrapping our willing Cybertruck with vinyl in a color similar to the old Lobo concept. Naturally, the giant plexiglass doors are not happening, but I’ve graphically simulated them. Up front, a fascia panel “grille” with LED lights covers the blunt Tesla pickup’s face. The bigger changes are in back; fiberglass sail panels with simulated louvers change the Cybertruck’s roofline around the bed, and a roof cap on top levels out the CT’s “pyramid” shape and creates a roof storage bin in front of the Lobo-style light bar/spoiler.

In back, mock “box taillights” as on the Lobo appear, and I’ve continued the stock raised wheel arch trims to go around the rear quarters and back of the truck. These thin-profile boxes are actually able to pivot down to access storage for tools and similar items; they could possibly be removed to carry away to a work or job site. New wheels could be modern iterations of old white spokers. I tried popular black rims, but as is often the case, it just kills the look of the design.

Here’s an animation of the original truck and the modified Lobo:

… And animation of the rear. Just getting rid of that “peaked” roof alone does wonders for the shape.

To drive this thing, I think I’d need to get an outfit to make me look like I’m Starbuck about to get into a Viper and fight the Cylons. Screw you, Boltar!

I’ll Get The Vinyl, You Grab The Rivet Gun And Glue

Love ’em or loathe ’em, there are a bunch of Cybertrucks out there. Stainless steel is never gonna rust, so they aren’t going away. If there’s a very limited pool of fans for the factory look, It’d be wise to find a way to repurpose them and get more acceptance.

In many ways, for better or worse, the Cybertruck is exactly the kind of vehicle us eighties kids thought the cars of today would be like, though we probably imagined the design of such a futuremobile would be better resolved. Tesla’s pickup truck always seemed like an unfinished product to me, so it’s time for us to complete the job, one pop rivet and tube of Liquid Nails at a time. Maybe this controversial machine could be the thing of your childhood sci-fi-style dreams after all?

Top graphic base image: Tesla