One of the funkiest, coolest little trucks ever made was the result of us having cheap chicken.
Way back in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated a series of tariff increases on brandy, dextrin, potato starch and, weirdly, light trucks valued at more than $1,000. He did this in response to a trade war with the Europeans, who were in a snit because inexpensive American chicken that was flooding the market over there, hurting continental chicken farmers.
Most of the tariffs, which came to be known as the “Chicken Tax,” eventually were repealed. Yet the one on light trucks remains. The 25 percent tax on the importation of light trucks (LBJ was specifically targeting German-built Volkswagen vans), utterly failed at protecting the US chicken market, yet remains in place more than 50 years later. The CATO Institute calls it “a textbook example of a ‘temporary’ government policy that has taken on a life of its own.”
Regardless, the Chicken Tax has required automakers wishing to avoid that tariff to do one of three things: build their trucks here in the US as Toyota, Nissan and Honda did; ignore the domestic truck market entirely; or sidestep the definition of a light truck in often peculiar ways.
Which brings us to the Subaru BRAT. To read more, click here
