This startup wants to build small, manual ‘Ameri-Kei’ trucks in Texas for $21,500

Back in the late 1800s, Ransom E. Olds founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, which would later become known as Oldsmobile. Unfortunately, Olds was pushed out of his eponymous firm less than a decade into its life, and in 1905 he set up the rival REO Motor Car Company.

REO (pronounced like Brazil’s second city, or, erm… Ferdinand) ended up launching one of the ancestors of the modern pickup truck in 1915. The Speed Wagon remained on sale in different forms for nearly 40 years, but the firm went out of business in the late 1960s. Now though, it’s back.

A new startup has picked up the dead trademark and intends to build a back-to-basics pickup truck in America with a body-on-frame construction, a petrol-powered four-cylinder engine and a six-speed manual gearbox.

Founder and CEO Zach De Bernardi has said the truck will sit in a class it is calling ‘Ameri-Kei’ as it’ll be “inspired by the simplicity and utility of the Japanese kei trucks".

Of course, it won’t be quite as small as a proper kei truck. REO has plans to kick off with the Runabout T4X – a single cab truck with two doors, two seats, all-wheel drive and a steel drop-side flatbed. Yep, much like the Toyota Hilux Champ that’s sold in South America and Southeast Asia. It'll apparently be 4.57m long and 1.88m in both width and height.

The plan is to build it in Texas, with direct-to-consumer sales starting at $21,500. You can pay $25 now for a reservation, but we won’t see the final design until later this year, and prototypes won’t go into production until 2027. If all runs smoothly, first customer deliveries will take place in late 2028 or 2029.

Two further bodystyles will follow on the same platform, with the T4C a double cab pickup with five seats and an extendable tailgate. The plan is for that to start at $25,000. Then there’s the S4C – a six-seat SUV with side-facing jump seats for $28,500. The interiors of each will feature analogue dials and physical controls with “one small screen for diagnostics and CarPlay – nothing more”.

The initial T4X will weigh around 1,900kg with a 544kg payload and two-tonne towing capability. REO wants them to run for 500,000 miles and promises other powertrains later on “when the law and the supply chain change”.

So, a question for our American friends, this or the all-electric Slate Truck?