It’s time to learn about one of the weirdest SUVs ever: the -based “B-100.” Made only in Mexico, the giant rectangle on wheels hastwo doors on one side and one on the other, plus barn-doors out back and three sets of bench seats. Three. This may be the greatest SUV ever.

When I discovered that Jalopnik has yet to write about a three-door, three bench seat-having, foreign-market, barn door-equipped SUV with a manual transmission, I frantically began drafting this article to try to salvage any bit of enthusiast-cred we have left. I hope I’m not too late.

Behold the Ford B-100, an apparent F-series chassis with a big, rectangular shell grafted onto it tail-ed. That shell features an extra door on the passenger’s side, four extra side windows and barn doors out back. It’s absolutely magical. The Ford advertisement above describes the truck’s amazing human-carrying abilities, saying (translated from Spanish):

The B-100 is a unit for large families with small transportation needs. Ideally for transporting 8 to 10 passengers comfortably. Its four-speed transmission takes full advantage of its power and provides great climbing power...Ford Motor Company only manufactures the chassis but the bodywork can be manufactured by any specialized company.

So basically, Ford provided the platform, while the unique bodies were grafted on by third-party outfitters. Neat.

What I love most are the three bench seats. The middle one is a bit narrower to allow access to the back row via the strange third door on the passenger’s side, but overall human cargo capacity is still eight to 10, which is impressive!

I, for one, would definitely be inclined to turn in my Econoline van or Country Squire wagon for this cool pickup truck-based people mover.

I’m not entirely sure which sixth-generation F-Series chassis this B-100's chassis is most closely based on. The seller of this one calls it an F-150 in his , though reading this makes me think some might technically be more closely related to an F-100. Either way, in all likelihood, the truck came as a panel van from the factory looking something like :

While the B-100 in these Craigslist photos looks to be based on an early sixth-generation F-Series truck, show that the B-100 package could be applied to later sixth-gen trucks and even seventh-gen-ers. The person who posted the Ford B-100 advertisement (the second picture in this article) writes in his description that the rare SUVs were produced between 1973 and 1994. Seems plausible.

Clearly, I don’t have a whole hell of a lot of information about this thing, though the few examples come with the 302 V8 and a four-speed manual transmission sending power to only the rear wheels.

I bet converting it to four-wheel drive would be fairly straightforward with a donor F-Series truck, at which point you could literally take two entire basketball teams out mudding. And that’s awesome, if you think about it.

Would I drop $20,000 for this this particular one? If I were absurdly rich and building a collection of quirky cars (which is what all absurdly rich people should do with their money), the answer is yes. Definitely yes.

Otherwise maybe.

h/t: Jake ()