With respect to cool and collectible old military trucks, they don’t come much smaller or more rare than the AMC M422 Mighty Mite, a tough little bastard designed to be flown into the front via helicopter and perform most of the duties of a standards Jeep. Anyone who has been around an old school flat fender Jeep can tell you that they are small little trucks. We don’t need to spend any time telling you how capable they were and all of that toughness was jammed in a tight little package. The Mighty Mite took that whole idea to the extreme.

Only 1,045 of these M422s were ever made and between ones wrecked in testing, sent off to the battlefield, and shipped to far flung corners of the globe, there can’t be more than a handful left for restorers and collectors to play around with. This truck could be the finest example left on Earth. It looks to be perfect from front to back (which is an admittedly short distance).

While the frame of the M422 is made of steel, the entire body is aluminum, helping the total weight of the truck to remain right at 1700lbs, perfect for transporting under a helicopter when it needed to get to the front lines. The engine is a neat piece as well. It is a 104ci, air cooled, V-4 mill that cranks out 55hp. It is also topped with a Holley carb. The truck has independent suspension front and back as well as lockers in both differentials (a first for a military Jeep). All of the brakes are inboard mounted next to the differentials as well.

The M422 passed all of the government testing and requirements with flying colors. It met their specs for measuring 107-inches long and 60-inches wide and it was able to fit in the designated shipping container which measured out at 171 cubic feet of space. A Chevy Suburban’s interior has 140 cubic feet of storage space as a reference. Believe it or not, four guys, (or two and 500lbs of cargo) and a 1,000lb trailer could all get moved around at the same time by the M422. We don’t know what the top speed was, but it couldn’t have been much more than 50-55mph. There were versions of this baby with recoilless rifles mounted on them as well, which must have looked pretty bad ass.

Lastly, the original trucks that were tested for military brass had Porsche engines. This was not going to fly, importing engines and all, so the whole thing almost went into the scrap until a few phone calls were made and it was discovered that AMC was working on the air cooled V4 that eventually ended up being the engine used in the truck. AMC agreed to get in on the project when they were given manufacturing rights to build the actual trucks.

This thing is super neat and we’d love to take in ‘wheeling to see just how capable it is. With decent clearance, a tiny wheelbase and lockers front and back, we think it would roll like a little bulldozer!

Scroll down to see photos and then the eBay link:

eBay Find: AMC M422 Mighty Mite