Random thought this morning. Where are all the minitrucks from the late 80s to kid 90s? Is there a dude with a collection of snugtops in his back yard? Where did all the 13x10 gold spoke wheels go? All the cans of pastel paint? Tailgates with crooked license plates? Ferrari style body kits? Somebody must be storing them. You dont really see them in junk yards. You dont really see them on the road.
As a loyal reader of Minitruckin' magazine years ago...
Great question. Those were some neat customs built back then!
Scrapped. Just like all those customs from the 50s. 
I imagine a car show 30 years from now unearthing an 90s mini truck. Oh the excitement.
Hiding out in backyards in socal. I've seen a few pics of old dual axle 100spoke tilt bed awesomenesses half under tarps like that.
Found on dude.. While looking for a little 70's truck to puter around around, i found this gem..
http://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/cto/4340959507.html
It's like a really cool time capsule.
They're still being built in Grand Junction. We're not quite cutting edge.
We'll since none of them actually resembled a complete project I imagine the owners probably couldn't find a clown to sell to nor did they have the money to complete it so I'd have to say most of them are sitting in backyards somewhere.
I knew one person who actually finished his mini-truck project and it was purty. Re-did the factory paint job, no whacky body kits, some sound system upgrades, and bagged.
They went to the same place the custom vans from the 70's and 80's did. Crazy how a hobby so popular can just disappear. I used to go to events that had 100's of wild trucks and by the 90's they were no more.
I want to know more about the wheels on that s10.
I've seen a few mini-trucks in the junkyard from time to time. They're usually outnumbered by the F&F "spraypainted interior trim" imports and Cavaliers though.
Not only did mini-trucking disappear but so did the trucks they were based off of. Nobody makes anything small anymore because "you might as well buy an F150."
Too bad car modifications aren't cyclical like fashions or I could make a lot of money holding onto dayglo-orange slanty-plate tailgates.
I haven't seen a custom van for the better part of a decade.
I see a Dakota with the factory convertible top occasionally...
Haven't seen any pinstripes with dry brush strokes since 1989.
Vigo wrote: I want to know more about the wheels on that s10.
They look to be Work Leadsleds.
Also, not really related but this showed up on the Minitruckin' forum....http://www.minitruckinweb.com/features/1403_before_the_feature_march_2014/photo_04.html
I see a couple mildly modified examples running around here on a semi-regular basis. The more '80s paint schemes have been painted over, and they're not on wire wheels, but the slanted license plates and some other touches remain.
MadScientistMatt wrote: I see a couple mildly modified examples running around here on a semi-regular basis. The more '80s paint schemes have been painted over, and they're not on wire wheels, but the slanted license plates and some other touches remain.
Some guys still do that. My buddy Andy is a minitrucker, and he has a bagged Mazda3 hatch (!) that he frenched in the crooked plate.
I still have dreams of building a Nissan D21.
There was one listed on the local c-list about a month ago. Gold-plated suspension, dancing bed, 5-figure paint job. I think they were asking $5500?
EDIT: Found it! 
Ok, so my memory sucks…
http://tippecanoe.craigslist.org/cto/4286934264.html
In reply to DirtyBird222 :
They might have been clown cars, but man was it a fun time in the car scene unlike nowadays when everybody's a jugde, critic and just a bunch of bought it asshats, at least back then it was a built mentally. Currently all you see is bolt on plug and play E36 M3, at least hot roders still fabricate E36 M3.
Hey ohayes, I see this is your first post here... we’re a pretty tolerant bunch, and if you look around, there’s a fair split between built and buy&bolt. Heck, we generally don’t mind people dragging up 5 year old threads... however if you’re going to do that, we’d prefer that you bring something interesting or useful to the conversation.
In reply to sleepyhead :
I'm torn on the issue because I am all for built not bought, but for many years I put food on the table by bullding for people with more money than talent (not a bad thing: they can make money doing what they are good at, and give it to me to build them an awesome ride) and my daily driver is a 100% stock awesome car because I wanted to drive something bought not built...
Most of them grew up and found out that dragging the truck over speed bumps did not amuse the wife.
I think part of the problem was they took very utilitarian, useful vehicles and turned them into (in many cases) rolling art with very little usefulness beyond car shows. That may be true of other vehicles too but a slammed and channeled Nissan pickup with no bed space and six 15” woofers behind the driver makes a pickup pretty unusable for much beyond the drive to the show.
Down here they moved on to full size trucks. I see bagged trucks a couple times a week at least, most of them still a work in progress like the mini trucks were. As to the trucks themselves, I bet a lot of them got parted out. Wheels in attics, tailgates hanging on garage walls, lambo hinges in a box, and the rest of the truck got scrapped. I'm right on the edge of putting out a CL ad asking for vintage mini truck parts and seeing what comes out of the woodwork. Tracking down the parts and meeting old mini truckers would make a neat documentary.
This one has been on my small town CL for a loooong time. The price remains the same at $5,900. Someone's prized possession. Looks like all stock drivetrain. It has avoided the Mitsu turbo engine swap that is popular with these.
Holy time warp Batman! Hard to believe its been 5 years since I started this.
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