In 1993, Isuzu put out a concept vehicle called the VehiCROSS. It was certainly a product of the early 1990s: gratuitous use of body-side cladding in near-black, blobby shapes…in today’s meme culture, the word “chonky” comes to mind almost immediately. And like many other 1990s concept car design studies, somehow it managed to actually come to production relatively unchanged compared to the concept version, which first appeared in Japan in 1997 and ended out it’s run in the United States in 2001. Brand-new these things were weird. They seemed like a Tonka truck build by Playskool in their overall approach. Even though a lot of the running gear and the engine lineup was raided from the Trooper SUV, the VehiCROSS just felt radically different, a touch too far out there. They’d romp off-road…Four Wheeler sang it’s praises as such when they tested it in the 2000 Four Wheeler of the Year competition, where it placed second behind the GMT800 Chevrolet Tahoe, but the looks…that’s another thing altogether.

If the title didn’t give away the surprise, then take note of the wheels that are on this VehiCross: late 1990s Dodge Ram units. And judging from the solid front axle up front, that’s not the only thing that was raided from a Ram…VehiCROSSes used an independent front suspension setup. The Magnum 360 is more-or-less the same as the LA small block Chrysler of old, just with a few modern tweaks and fuel injection…at least, in stock form…so compared to the 3.5L V6, it’s at least on-par if not just a tick more potent. It looks funkier than all hell, but out on the trails this should be a blast and it looks pretty good for a twenty-year-old dream machine. Feeling weird?

Facebook Marketplace Link: 1999 Isuzu VehiCROSS