Disclaimer: In today’s world of warnings to not drink the contents of your radiator, I can’t assume that anything is obvious. To that end, I need to tell you that there is no such thing as a 1987 Jeep Mighty Mite Rascal, which means that there is no way that David Tracy could have purchased one. I will say that if one did exist, and a particularly beat-to-shit thirty-seven-year-old example was available, something like the fabricated journey that follows would almost certainly have transpired.
Times change. People change. Usually that’s a good thing, but not everyone would agree with that statement about me, David Tracy. A little while back, some commenters were a bit disappointed that my newfound love for Ineos Grenadiers and electric BMWs seemed to eclipse the fervor that I once had for grease-and-guts Jeep products. These readers thought that I’d gone all “bougie” or even “made like Sting.” I don’t follow pop culture, but I see that Sting was once a spiky-haired leader of post-punk rock band and actor who appeared in the movie “Dune.” Now he makes adult contemporary music for middle-aged ladies with pillows that say IT’S WINE O’CLOCK, and it seems that Sting even purchased a lute at some point. Ouch. I guess that the comparison from this reader was not a compliment.
I have no idea where these readers are coming from since the employee parking lot at Galpin is still filled with products of all shapes and sizes featuring seven-bar grilles that are all registered to yours truly. You might remember that I’ve explored even some of the most extreme Jeep products from the eighties including a 1987 AMC/Jeep Jeepster and a 1987 Jeep SJX OffRoadster pickup (both of which I bought and then sold on Shitbox Showdown), not to mention a 1985 Jeep FC Grand Teton (which I didn’t buy).
[Ed Note: My god these never get any less weird. To clarify, I’m now editing an article written by someone portraying me, pretending to buy a rusty old car that doesn’t exist. I just … I have no words. -DT].
Recently I found another rare, seen-better-days example of this favored brand that I didn’t need but simply had to have — it was only a few hours from me. Would a true organic-food-eating, BMW-driving sap consider such garbage? I think not! Take that you naysaying commenters and follow me on this fool’s journey!
Gotta Catch ‘Em All
Ignorance is bliss, and if I didn’t have access to Craigslist my life might be so much easier. I wouldn’t have to see rare, misunderstood products appear on my screen at giveaway prices. The lack of rust out here in sunny California means that even connecting rods poking out of a block means nothing; getting a heap back on the road out here is child’s play.
My lunchtime find today is an especially good one, and like those guys who collect every album from an artist, this is one that could allow me to own both the largest and smallest Jeep products of the Malaise era. It’s a questionable condition 1987 Jeep Mighty Mite Rascal Edition, a well-engineered. well-intentioned entry into the market that nonetheless failed to find success. I’ve long defended these things despite having done no more than sit in one, so I need to put my money where my mouth is to hit those “gone Hollywood” commenters between the eyes.
[Editor’s Note: I was ridiculously close to buying a Mighty Mite earlier this year. They’re tiny, off-road capable (they even have an automatic locking rear diff!), and most importantly: air-cooled V-4! This fake 1987 Mighty Mite … I’ll be honest, it does look tempting. -DT].
Ah, but what exactly is a 1987 Mighty Mite? To explain that, let’s go back sixty-five years to the vehicle that inspired the eighties remake, and why they even made the tribute ‘Mite to begin with.
You Want To Do WHAT With It?
The original Jeep (what became the civilian CJ model) was never a minuscule vehicle, but it’s actually the perfect size for almost any use you can think of. However, if “carry with a helicopter” is on that list, the standard CJ might be a bit large. That’s the exact brief that was given for this small Jeep that could be airlifted to inaccessible areas and used by the Marine Corps.
The winning design of the 1959 Mighty Mite was by AMC, who beat out other makers including Jeep-maker Willys (which AMC would soon own). Powered by a little air-cooled 1.8-liter V4 that made a respectable 52 horsepower, the Mighty Mite had on-the-fly selectable 2- or 4-wheel drive, inboard brakes, and independent suspension. It weighed only 1,700 pounds thanks to an aluminum body and all sorts of trick features like a lack of exhaust system on the early version (it used the frame rails instead, but moisture from the motor promoted rust so not such a great idea).
With all of that lightweight material and other complexity, the Mighty Mite was expensive to build. What’s worse is that the helicopters that the Mite was designed to be lifted by were replaced with more powerful machines, rendering the Mighty Mite obsolete in 1962 after almost 4000 had been made.
You could never buy a Mighty Mite from a Jeep dealer; there was barely a market for a civilian Jeep CJ back then, much less a tiny one. By the mid-eighties, though, something started to change that would have Jeep bringing the whole Mighty Mite idea out of the mothballs.
Small But Mighty
True legends never back down from a challenge, and Jeep found itself in such a situation around 1985. Japanese manufacturer Suzuki began selling its little Jimny model in the United States as the Samurai. Several feet shorter than the YJ Wrangler, less expensive, and far more fuel efficient, it sold relatively well at first (until Consumer Reports found out about its ability to roll over and play dead). Suzuki was also about to offer a more civilized baby off-roader, the Sidekick, that would be sold in Chevy dealers as the Tracker.
Jeep could have chosen to just ignore this threat to lower-end sales of its CJ/YJ descendant of a World War II vehicular hero, but struggling Jeep parent American Motors couldn’t just let this go. Besides, their French partner had what seemed to be the perfect answer to this Japanese onslaught.
No Roads To “Off Road” From
Today’s “crossover” vehicles can theoretically be used off-road, yet rarely ever are. By contrast, in France during the postwar years, “off-roading” was really more of a necessity and not a choice. The infrastructure of roads was quite lacking, and just getting to town would look like something that an American might call an “overlanding adventure.” Cars like the Citroen 2CV and later Renault 4 were designed with long-travel, highly compliant suspensions and front wheel drive traction to manage this environment. Below, you can see testers beating the shit out of a new R4; there’s other footage I’ve seen of these things going through deep mud and other insane Gambler-500-style challenges.
Naturally, someone at Citroen and Renault realized that the capabilities of these chassis would make them easily translate to lightweight Jeep-like vehicles. Raising the ride height slightly and adding fiberglass bodies, the French firms offered the Citroen Mehari and Renault Rodeo as what could possibly be called some of the first crossover vehicles.
The Renault Rodeo went through several different versions, ultimately ending with the Renault 5/LeCar-based Rodeo 5. A steel “exoskeleton” frame supports the plastic body panels, the color of which was set for the year it was built (as in all 1982 models were orange, all 1983 cars were green, and so on).
This version even offered the option of a four-wheel drive system, something that the longitudinal engine placement likely made easier to do. You couldn’t find a vehicle that was mechanically more different than a Suzuki Samurai, but the size was almost identical and the off-road capabilities were likely quite similar (as if most buyers would take it off-road anyway). The styling, of course, looked very French. That’s great if you’re trying to attract a Jason Torchinsky, but not so great if you want to appeal to the Jeep masses. Someone else in France had an answer for that.
Often when you think the French auto industry couldn’t get any stranger, it sneaks up and surprises you. If you thought the Rodeo was bizarre, there was a company called Grandin that actually put a body on the Renault compact chassis (in this case from the R4) that looked exactly like a shrunken-down CJ/YJ that they named the Dallas.
It seems odd to name something this small after “Dallas” (I can’t see it with EWING license plates), but someone at American Motors or parent company Renault must have seen this thing and had a “eureka” moment which led to the in 1987-1992 Mighty Mite, a revival of the old Marine corps mini-Jeep. I was about to purchase an example of this very machine less than two hours from my house in Bakersfield. What could go wrong?
[Ed Note: Wow, this is actually real! OK, the fake stuff is coming next. -DT].
Might Maybe Need A Tow
The Craigslist ad and even text description from the seller left open a lot of possibilities, some of which were not good. It turns out that it hasn’t run “for a bit” since “it just wasn’t smooth” resulting in it being “parked when I had used up the gas in the tank”. I loaded the old i3 up with a variety of tools, a gas can, spark plugs, fuel filters, and a battery among other things that a “not run for a bit” machine might require.
I knew that the Mighty Mite was more than a foot shorter than the YJ, but I still wasn’t prepared for how small it looked when I pulled up to its Bakersfield parking lot resting place. The faded red plastic body parts would easily buff out, and I trust that since this isn’t Michigan the underbody will still be there.
What looks like a full roll cage is in fact a structural part of the unibody Mighty Mite. To this frame you attach the roof panels and then can add either soft vinyl rear side window and “hatch” or rigid glass pieces, like on this one. The windshield fits inside the front of the cage and can fold down like on a CJ or YJ. Soft doors and half-doors are available; our example has roll-down side windows on solid doors with interior latches that no longer work (and a hatch that won’t fully shut).
All of the goodies from the Rascal package are accounted for like the graphics, larger tires on alloy wheels (off of a French Renault Espace van, of all things), a different bumper with built-in driving lights, and a black skid plate under the front valance. The black denim-like fabric inside that’s part of the package isn’t totally disgusting on the YJ-sourced front buckets or the tiny rear seat, though some creature appears to have eaten away at the bottom of the cushion on the side facing the cargo/trunk area. It smells a bit like rich mahogany, if that that mahogany had been urinated on by small animals (it’s actually not that bad). The owner proves that you can have a total command of the English language and still say nothing, as he’s pretty useless at giving me any useful information on the car he’s selling; I’m basically on my own.
The Renault Rodeo had the typical French spare tire on the engine, but the Mighty Mite’s is too big, so it hangs on the back. Jason likes to talk about the hidden door handles on the tailgate (as well as the side doors) as being a “sublime” design yet all I care about is that they work.
Pulling the dipstick, popping the master cylinder cover and opening the radiator reveal stuff that looks like brake fluid, oil, and antifreeze (but not in that order), so I put a wrench on the crank and pray. The little four turns over, so I press my luck, throw in the battery and some fresh fuel. Remarkably, it fires up after some sawing at the starter, but the owner was right in that it ran as smooth as 20-grit sandpaper. The spark plugs look reasonable, so unquestionably one of the injectors is intermittently leaving the chat, but three cylinders are enough to get us home. Or so I think. I throw caution to the wind and leave the i3 at the seller’s location to pick up later; little did I know that I’d be able to walk home faster than I could in this thing.
Not Its First Rodeo
You wouldn’t expect the new Mighty Mite to drive like any Jeep product you’re familiar with, and it doesn’t. Car mechanicals will give you a car-like thing, in this case a tiny car with barely functioning brakes and minimal power. Still, a Samurai is a penalty box by comparison; the level of comfort and quality of the steering is an order of magnitude higher. As with any semi-open old off-roader, the cacophony of wind, gear, tire, and engine noise can be pretty deafening, but Mighty eventually gets up to nearly 55 miles an hour and cruises happily along. It seems happy to finally be hitting near mile-a-minute speeds after being immobile for who knows how long.
Suddenly there was a BANG and things got very dark. I surmise that it was one of three things:
1.) I just died and now this is what purgatory looks like
2.) A total eclipse of the sun just occurred
3.) The hood has just flown open
I quickly realize that it’s the last one, jam on the brakes and stick my head out of side to do my best to see straight ahead as I struggle for the shoulder. Thankfully, the hood hit the windshield frame so the glass is intact. The hood latch seems to not be catching, and I have no time or interest in figuring out why. Lacking sufficient bungee cords and with the support struts and hinges bent and busted I have no choice but to unbolt the offending plastic hood and dump it in the trunk area.
Pressing on, I start to admire the interior of my new purchase. There’s an industrial simplicity and style to the dashboard. Like the CJ and YJ, gauges are placed in the center, with climate and radio controls below. This Rascal model has the expanded gauge package and a digital clock down in the multi-use panel area for accessory switches, as well as a small tachometer in front of the driver.
There are glove boxes on both sides of the dash, and the tach rises up with the lid. On the passenger’s side, Jeep has provided an upper glovebox and a bigger bin below that, just above the floor and the raccoon. Wait, what?
I hammer the two left-hand pedals once again, locking up the rear drums on this very non-ABS vehicle and sending the Mighty Mite sliding half sideways as it ends up on the shoulder. Stupidly, I grab for the broken door handle before reaching out the open window pull that latch and get out. What the hell? Where’d a raccoon been hiding?
I’m not sure what passers-by thought of seeing a thirtysomething editor of the fastest growing automotive website on the globe yelling “GET OUT!!” through an open door of dumb looking little Jeep at a tiny animal, but I’m sure they surmised that this was probably a really neat guy. The racoon didn’t seem rabid or anything, and he also seemed to have no interest in leaving what I could assume was his home under that rear seat for some time. A bit of beef jerky from my pocket seemed to be the ticket to get him to leave the Mighty Mite, and sure enough he jumped out of the passenger’s door to receive his snack.
Finally. I hop back in the Jeep, happy to be rid of that squatting rodent even though I’m sure his chances of survival out in the open of the inland empire were limited. Then, of course, I slammed the door and saw it in my rear view mirror: the sad face of this tiny, displaced animal. SUNOVA!! No, I can’t just… OH DAMMIT!
Against my better judgement, I dump the contents from a plastic bin onto the trunk floor and punch air holes in the lid. More beef jerky leads our friend into this bin, which then goes into the trunk, under the damaged hood. This is absurd.
New cargo safely stowed away, I continue on for half an hour or so, marveling at the ride quality of the Mighty. If you watch these old videos of a Renault 4 (the predecessor of the car that the Mighty’s chassis comes from) you can see the lack of motion of the body on super rough terrain, so it’s no surprise that the way the Mite handles any kind of road irregularities is far removed from a traditional live-axle-on-leaf-springs-front-and-back Jeep. In fact, despite the fact that the shocks and bushings were due for replacement back when I was in junior high this thing rides even better than my modern BMW i3. My purchase of this funny little Jeep seems quite sound.
It was about this time that the alternator light started to softly glow. So now we know another reason why it was parked?
Trusting a Reagan-era diagnostic indicator would be wrong, so I pull over and test it with my meter. Naturally, it showed that the alternator was now purely a cool-looking spinning ornamental engine piece. Could I make it home on battery power alone with the sun finally starting to set? I’m not sure, but I hatch a plan as I pull into a Chinese restaurant to grab much needed food.
“Can I get your guest a drink?” the waiter sheepishly asks me. The “guest” he is referring to sitting across the table from me is the little DieHard top terminal battery from the Mighty, now hooked up to the powerful charger that was somehow in the plastic bin that I had dumped out to accommodate our raccoon friend. Royal Cantonese Garden’s tables thankfully had electric plugs next to them, so topping up with electricity while I devoured Moo Goo Gai Pan was an easy multitask.
“No”, I say straight-faced, “it’s a maintenance-free date”.
Hey, this is a sit down joint where I have to tip, so I should at least get my money’s worth, of electricity right? But will it be enough to get me home?
Final Destination, or Final Destination?
The radio (still works!) and main beams stay off to preserve battery power, leaving me time to think: why did the Mighty Mite II fail? There’s plenty of reasons that are offered up; people were ignorantly leery of Renault mechanicals, or Chrysler saw this as just one more AMC product to kill after it purchased the company. The reality could simply be that Jeep was doing the equivalent of trying to have the most popular Ethiopian restaurant in Fort Wayne. In other words, they were fighting with Suzuki and GM for buyers that didn’t exist. The market for dinky four-wheelers was limited to begin with and evaporated as quickly as it arrived. That’s a shame, since the Mite is more well-rounded vehicle than the competitors.
Cruising down the 405 in darkness with only the parking lights feeble glow is not the safest thing that I’ve ever done, but late in the evening the Mighty Mite pulls into the Galpin employee / David Tracy Car Museum parking lot under its own power and finds a space next to one of its larger older brothers. The SJ and YJ might be loath to accept a sibling with Renault oily bits. but they should. AMC managed to make something worthy of the Jeep name with what they had to work with, and I’m proud to fill out the lower end of my collection with this running and driving example.
Oh, the creature in the plastic bin still in the trunk, now under the removed hood? I knew just what to do with it. There are distant relatives in my Holy Grail ZJ a few cars down. I love blended families, don’t you? Welcome to LA, you big dummy.
Hey this is a super fun read, and the raccoon family is cute! Y’all totally need a Californian native junior editor, though: 1) None of the mapped trip passes anywhere NEAR the Inland Empire and 2) I’ve never seen Moo Goo Gai Pan offered anywhere in California.
I originally had him buying the car in Lancaster or Ontario but changed my mind and didn’t change the post. I think I had some Moo Goo Gai Pan in Pasadena or Alhambra or something, but indeed if he was on his way back from Bakersfield it might not have happened.
Fair enough, though Lancaster is still not Inland Empire…
The editor’s notes absolutely confirm the plausibility of this premise. Hilarious and genius. Well done, Bishop!
I can’t wait to see what imaginary David fixes up to take to Moab on St Patrick’s day.
The organic food thing makes me wonder…can you fertilize plants with 100% pure free-range Jeep rust?
Sad face racoon on my next Autopian member T-shirt, please.
I would wear the heck out of that. He needs a hug. <3
This was yet another magnificent entry into this series.
When it’s got enough entries, I kind of want it in print. Author should be David Tracy (as a pen name).