In the summer of 1945, Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty changed moving history when they launched U-Haul. Since then, the company has been the go-to provider of equipment for all sorts of do-it-yourselfers from the self-mover to the weekend racer. U-Haul’s equipment has evolved throughout the years, getting bigger and more capable over time. I just found what might be U-Haul’s coolest truck ever, and it’s this truck that you might not have seen before. U-Haul used to take compact Ford Couriers and outfitted them with adorably tiny cubes so you could bust a move without breaking the bank.
U-Haul is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, which is impressive for any business. It’s even wilder when you realize that Shoen originally wanted to be a doctor, and a small infraction led to his expulsion from school and eventual enlistment in the military. It was after getting out of the military that Shoen realized there was no business that provided one-way moving trailer rentals, motivating him and Anna to launch the U-Haul Trailer Rental System. Had Shoen’s dream not been snatched away, Americans might not have been able to rent one-way trailers from local service stations.
Instead, Shoen dedicated his career to making moving easier. The name U-Haul is now a household name, and its orange and white trucks can be recognized from the farthest shores in Maine to the surfer communities of California and all points in between. The company’s obsession with easy rentals has led to innovations like the CT13 fiberglass camper and U-Haul’s latest Toy Hauler trailer. Decades ago, if you needed to move, but didn’t need to move a lot, you might have rented this, U-Haul’s special Ford Courier Mini Mover “MM” truck.
Trucks Big And Small
U-Haul says it first added in-town rental trucks to its fleet in 1959, followed by one-way rentals in 1960. This fleet was expanded to include Ford Econoline vans in 1965, followed by a lineup of pickup trucks and even cars just a year later.
The company notes that one of its most important moving truck innovations arrived in 1976 with the introduction of the TC, a Ford F-350-based moving truck with an aluminum box. This truck became known for its insane durability, from the sturdiness of the aluminum moving box to the Ford FE big block V8, which U-Haul operators found easy to rebuild over and over.
While all of this was happening, Ford was fighting for compact truck supremacy. Ford says its first-ever compact truck was actually the Ranchero coupe utility, but that truck quickly ran into a problem. Imported trucks from the likes of Datsun and Toyota began flooding into America, and America’s car manufacturers quickly realized that they didn’t have the equipment to compete.
Ford, like General Motors and Chrysler’s brands, didn’t engineer its own compact truck to beat the imports. Instead, it tried its best to put an American spin on a Japanese truck. In 1965, Mazda’s compact truck, the Proceed, entered its second generation. This truck, which was also sold as the B1500 in some markets, made its way to America in 1972 as the B1600.
That year, Ford launched its own version of the Mazda B series known as the Courier, a revival of a name Ford had last used on sedan deliveries in 1960. Ford’s interpretation of the B series featured a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine with 74 HP and 92 lb-ft of torque on deck, or a mild improvement over the 1.6-liter engines of the Mazda versions. These trucks were small, but mighty, with Ford advertising a hefty 1,400-pound payload rating.
U-Haul’s Mini Mover was built on the second-generation Courier, which launched in 1977. This new Courier was still largely Mazda, including being built by the firm, but Ford ironed out the bodywork a lot more to give the truck a more American look.
Further improvements happened under the metal, where the Courier now had front disc brakes and the option of a hotter engine, the 2.3-liter four from the Pinto and the Mustang II. This power plant was good for 77 HP and 109 lb-ft of torque. Payload remained a steady 1,400 pounds while trailer hauling capacity was pegged at 2,000 pounds.
The U-Haul Mini Mover
The second-gen Courier was available with a 6-foot or 7-foot bed, and to make the Mini Mover, U-Haul removed this bed and added its own metal 6.6-foot box.
U-Haul’s specs illustrate just how tiny the Mini Mover was. U-Haul’s stated Gross Vehicle Weight Rating was just 4,650 pounds, and the truck’s empty weight was noted to be 3,000 pounds. Technically, that does mean that the U-Haul version of the Courier had a better payload than the regular pickup truck, which makes sense given that the U-Haul version also has a GVWR that’s 550 pounds greater than the stock truck.
The Mini Mover joined an all-Ford U-Haul lineup as the rental giant’s smallest cube truck offering. The awesome thing is that because of the Mini Mover’s tiny size, it’s also one of U-Haul’s smallest moving trucks ever. The idea behind this one was that you’d rent the Mini Mover if you wanted a fuel-efficient way to move out of your apartment.
The Ford Courier continued to sell in America until 1982, when it was replaced by the Ford Ranger. The Mini Mover’s successor wasn’t a Ford. Instead, it moved to a Toyota compact platform and had a box enlarged to 10 feet on its back with a TM fleet code.
The Mini Mover got to serve during U-Haul’s wildest period, when the company saw itself as the place to rent pretty much everything. Seriously, U-Haul used to rent motorhomes, camper trailers, personal watercraft, lawnmowers, party supplies, ATVs, belt sanders, cement mixers, and so much more. U-Haul even ran Haullywood Video Rentals out of seven U-Haul stores across Michigan, where you were able to rent all kinds of video cassettes to play inside of a specially-branded U-Haul VHS player. Amusingly, Haullywood Video had adult movies, too, so renters could bust moves in more ways than one.
If you happen to know where one of the U-Haul-branded watercraft or ATVs can be found for sale, please comment or email me. I’ve been looking for one of these unicorns for years without luck.
Today, the Mini Mover concept is sort of still around, but it’s now a modified GMC Savana chassis cab with a ten-foot cube carrying the “TM” label. I’ve been told by a U-Haul employee that this is supposed to mean “Tiny Mover.” Many of U-Haul’s fleet codes are abbreviations like that. Truthfully, they’re entirely meaningless for most people, but nerds like me love them. One day, I will update my U-Haul Code article to include what these abbreviations mean.
This Ford Courier U-Haul
What you should know is that U-Haul fans consider these Courier-based Mini Movers to be quite rare. I’ve seen a couple of these trucks butchered by YouTubers and a few on Facebook, but that’s it. So, this 1978 U-Haul Mini Mover for sale in Hurricane, Utah, is a rare find. Who even knows when the next time I’ll see one will be?
This truck isn’t exactly stock. Most of the decals that were on the box were removed, but the box is otherwise intact and in great shape. It also seems as though someone attempted to polish the box and then perhaps didn’t finish. The Courier on the front has been repainted, and the whole truck has also been lowered. The seller offers this description:
This Courier has a 5 speed manual transmission and a 2.3 4 cylinder engine. No A/C and the heater core is bypassed because it just gets too hot here in the summer time (southern Utah is a desert). New tires, new clutch & and clutch master cylinder, new brake master cylinder, all new NOS taillights, reverse lights & marker lights. Rebuilt driveshaft and carrier bearing. It has been repainted with a low gloss finish. A lot of work has gone into this truck but still some room for improvements if you want to.
Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of the lack of an air-conditioner or the deleted heater core. Granted, this truck is so special I can’t really imagine driving it in the winter, anyway.
The asking price of $10,000 may also be a tough one. While these trucks are rare, they don’t appear to have much collector value. Very few ever come up for sale, so it’s even harder to get comps. I’ve seen one beater Mini Mover sell for $600 and another sell for $2,000. This is a bit better than a beater, but is it $8,000 better considering the effectively non-functional HVAC?
I’m not sure, but I will tell you that I desperately want this truck. It would make such an adorable motorcycle hauler or weird, low-key camper. I think I’d be flying to Utah right this moment if the price were closer to $5,000. So, I guess I’ll just keep dreaming.
If you’re somehow a bigger U-Haul nerd than I, I’d say go and get it. This little truck is such an obscure piece of U-Haul history that you won’t see any information on it on U-Haul’s website. Forget a piece of art, buy this truck as your next collectible!
Top photo: Facebook Listing
I remember the Toyota versions, but I don’t remember seeing the Ford ones. I’m sure I have, cause I was alive before 82, but the Toyota ones made a bigger impact.
(Lovely work on the top graphic whoever did that. I’m not sure what you’d call that kind of design, sort of a visual pun? Even got the correct colours which is a nice touch 🙂
I actually looked at this one just the other day. My little brother sent me the listing because he knows I like the oddball stuff. It’s sorely tempting, I just wish I had 10k I could spend on it I’d probably do some kind of microcamper out of it and make as few physical alterations as possible.
This thing is so cool! I love niche vehicles like this! There is. Lwb courier with a stake bed sitting outside gatesville tx that I used to pass daily
They are neat little trucks having some limelight now. I saw that truck earlier and can’t understand the price they are asking. It’s a $500 truck that has been lowered. They seem to be popping up all over after rotting in fields for years. Must be quite a bit of the Toyotas out there but you don’t really see them. It’s more common to find the motorhome version.
There’s something deeply adorable about this truck, but I agree that $10K is way too much for what it is. MAYBE if it were perfect with a smoothly mirror-polished box like a restored Airstream, and with working AC and heat, but not like this and even then, $10K would seem a few grand too much. The black vinyl seats and door cards look pretty nice though.
But someone will probably want it. I used to entertain a fantasy about buying my 95-year-old neighbors early 90s Toyota Echo 2-door (which was originally an Enterprise rental I think) and chopping off the back of the cabin and (as neatly as possible) putting in some roll cage/tubing reinforcements and adding an aluminum box (like the cargo containers they put into the bellies of big jets so as to make my own little box truck. A comfortable and easy-to-drive Toyota econobox in front (only the two front seats would remain) and just a big empty aluminum box with rounded corners where the rear two seats and trunk used to be. An aftermarket back-up camera and screen would compensate for the lack of a window for the rear-view mirror.
Probably luckily for me (since my back is too shot to undertake such projects myself, and I’m not just going to give someone thousand$ to do it for me properly) her accountant’s son got to buy her Echo, so my fantasy of my own little box ‘truck’ is/was moot.
I knew about these from Puddin’s Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cQQDeVO-XI
It’s all about the YEE-HAUL
I drove one from NY to Boston circa 1981. Folks are saying they had speed governors, but I’m pretty sure the laws of physics – pushing a (loaded) 4000 lb cube down the highway with 75 horsepower – acted as a natural speed limiter.
I actually rode in one these in high school. I learned the trick of using the umbrella hand brake to do hill start in that truck. I like the image of a tiny box truck, but my favorite is,still the Toyota dually flat bed.
I wouldn’t mind having this, but not for $10K. 😐
The heater core excuse sounds like BS. I suspect the real reason it was bypassed is that it started to leak and would have been a PITA to replace. Otherwise it appears to be a sweet little truck.
Yup, nobody bypasses a working heater core because it gets hot where they live (the desert gets plenty cold at night)
This probably didn’t have air conditioning when new though, and is the better for it, it needs every bit of hp its got
Someone needs to call Puddin. He can add another one to the stable.
Someone here in Wilmington, NC drives one of these around all the time. He brings it to Cars and Coffee and such regularly.
SWG parts hauler?
Having been to his evil lair, I am not sure he could find parking even for this little guy
I rented one of these Courier based truckettes to move myself from Denver to California in 1982, but the one I used had a bench seat and the earlier engine, not the Pinto motor. I don’t remember the fuel mileage tho I had it loaded pretty thoroughly. I do remember disabling the speed controller – which was set at 55 mph….problem was if you tried to pick up speed for a hill it would limit you and then you’d be down to 30 mph going up….once disconnected I could easily maintain 55 up the next hill. Of course I hooked everything back up before I returned the truck.
I’ve heard of these. Exactly because Puddin’s Fab Shop, who is noted in the article as the YouTuber Butchering these trucks. What he does may not be for everyone, but he loves his mini box trucks and has “saved” a few now & gotten them back on the road.
From watching him, it is cool how much of the box components (lights, latches, etc) can be bought from U-Haul by the public for Repairs.
What’s the story with private purchases of UHaul rental equipment? I’ve read that UHaul famously won’t allow any of their trailers to be sold (I think they destroy them?), but obviously this truck is in private hands.
Their 5×8 trailers are better built than anything I can buy!
Trailers are scrapped, everything else to my knowledge is sold except for one motor vehicle they used to rent which were destroyed so that not a single part could be used again *intentionally vague due to legal reasons*.
Them scrapping the trailers makes sense as trailers are dirt simple so if they are at the point where they can no longer be repaired/rebuilt then they’re really only worth their scrap value. This is especially relevant for aluminum trailers as aluminum has a finite fatigue life. Steel on the other hand if built to the proper thickness can have an infinite fatigue life.
Also it’s much easier to steal a trailer and title it somewhere else than it is a car. By making sure there was no legal market for used U-Haul trailers and standardizing on U-Haul specific designs instead of slapping a U-Haul label on COTS trailers rarely ever are U-Haul trailers stolen, and those that are stolen are usually recovered fairly quickly.
Here ya go, friend!
https://trucksales.uhaul.com/
Enjoy!
As others noted, U-Haul destroys its old trailers but is happy to sell you an old truck! My local U-Haul corporate office used to have two dozen or so E-Series chassis cabs for sale.
They used to sell the trailers but stopped sometime prior to 2000 when I started looking for one. A local U-Haul employee told me it was because of the Ford Exploder fiasco and the lawyers were worried about purchasers hooking them to an Exploder and then suing U-Haul when they wrecked. Timing is consistent but otherwise I have no idea of the veracity of said employee’s claim.
Funny you ask that. I found a U-Haul car hauler on marketplace in Dallas (maybe Houston?) for $1600 with a bill of sale from copart. I was really tempted but nervous about the register-ability of it.
Most of the pickup trucks are leased and returned Ford or GM. I have to ask about the vans, some of them may be leased as well. Anything wrecked gets picked clean of reusable parts then scrapped by the maintenance shops.
I can’t read this without thinking of Puddin’s Fab Shop on youtube. He has three (OK, at least one – one is definitely a courier, but the others may be Datsuns). The Courier he redid in U-Haul livery with the words changed. It’s the Yee-Hawl!
This was replaced in the late 80’s by the original TM which was a 10′ box on a Toyota truck chassis. There were still some of the MM’s around and available for rent and the TC’s soldiered on for many more years beside similar vintage 24′ TH’s in the local only fleet. Lots of folks unhappy with both during summer moves as even when there was AC hardware, it didnt work.
Source, I was a manager of U-Haul moving centers for a number of years in Phoenix and Albuquerque.
I stopped using U-Haul years ago. Their stuff breaks down all the time. Last time and what made me so turned off from them, was a break down on a long trip that took days for them to fix. They didn’t cover any of my added costs or give it to me at a discount/free. My last move, I used Penske. Geez, it was like a brand new truck and they even had it available on the day I requested it!
I’ve had similar experiences with U-Haul. One out of every 5 or so rentals has been a vehicle in ‘good’ condition (good meaning you can run the AC and travel at a speed over 35mph). I’ve had much better rentals from Penske.
ABC News did a story several years ago on the show ’20/20′, about U-Haul’s problems, and the court cases that ensued, after some customers were killed in accidents involving faulty U-Haul equipment.
I am not surprised. I was renting these for local moves and thankfully never had to wander onto an interstate. I don’t know if they would have given me something better for a one-way rental.
The trucks I got were literally 20 years old or more. I don’t have a written record of the mileage, but it was a lot.
The last Penske I rented they had absolutely DOUSED the interior in Armor-All, including the floormats. After 5 minutes of my feet sliding all over the floor like Scooby-Doo trying to run from a ghost, I stopped and grabbed a handful of dirt from the ditch and threw it on the floor for some traction
The last Y’all-Haul I rented made a horrible racket at 55mph and sounded like the world was coming apart at 65. Luckily I wasn’t going very far.
I’m sorry to hear that but it isn’t surprising.
There was a power struggle of sorts, and sadly the good guys didn’t win, the corrupt assholes currently run the company.
The first time I needed to rent a truck to move, I called my local U-Haul to get a box truck and a trailer to put my truck on. The morning I was supposed to pick them up, I got a call from the U-Haul dealer saying the closest truck was in one city 75 miles to the south, and the closest trailer was 50 miles to the north east, and that I would have to go get them myself. I quick called around and a Budget dealer nearby had exactly what I needed so I called U-Haul back and told them I was cancelling my rental and went with Budget instead. The next two times I moved, Budget was the first place I looked. I only went with U-Haul once recently because I needed a trailer to haul a used playset and they were the closest place with trailer rental. And that was only after calling to confirm they actually had a trailer there that I could rent.
Similar experience for me. The morning I needed it, they called to say it would be ready at 9pm. I had thought my month early reservation would have guaranteed it was ready when I needed it. Found a bigger truck through another company at similar price within an hour, and have never looked back.
The U-Hell trucks are total garbage and poorly maintained. Their trailers are damn near indestructible.
I helped my son move from Seattle to New Orleans and Budget’s quote for a similar-sized Chevy box van was about $500 less and it was better-equipped and smoother than the E-350. I rented U-Haul’s version and pulled a car on a dolly behind it and wow, that thing was loud, especially going uphill. If I ever make a similar move again, I’m hiring a mover driving my car. I’m too old and my back is bad enough already.
Yeah, my best friend’s brother moved cross country to Oregon with a U-Haul right before COVID hit, truck had 4 worn out tires, and all 4 of them blew out one at a time en route. The company would only pay to replace one at a time, even though the others were clearly also bad, so he just had to keep driving until each one failed in turn and had an all-new set by the time he got there. But, it was apparently 3ish hours waiting for assistance every time, plus the actual time it took to get to a shop and get it changed
I picked up the largest truck U-Haul had (26′?), it was also a manual. I got about 1 mile away when it dropped the driveshaft, which rolled across 4 lanes of highway. A Washington State Patrolman was nice enough to recover it and bring it to me. My next huge truck, an hour later, the driver’s mirror fell off.
I’m surprised this one isn’t painted yellow, lifted, and wearing a set of Milestar Patagonias. 😉
Are they rare because when they lined them up, the line of boxes disappeared?