Not the bold, risk-taking startup version of Toyota. Not some experimental EV-era Toyota. We’re talking about the same buttoned-down, reliability-first, play-it-safe Toyota Motor Corporation that built its reputation on Camrys, Corollas, and doing nothing remotely weird for decades.
And yet… they did this.
Wait, Toyota Did a Midgate Too?
Cast your mind back to the early 2000s, when automakers briefly convinced themselves that more moving parts somehow equaled more innovation.
The “midgate” was the hot idea of the moment. You saw it on the Chevrolet Avalanche, the Cadillac Escalade EXT, and even the Hummer H2 SUT. The pitch sounded great: fold down the rear seats, open a panel, and suddenly your truck bed gets longer.
Useful? Sure.
Simple? Not even close.
All that folding, sealing, and reinforcing added cost, complexity and assembly headaches. And as quickly as the idea showed up in concept vehicles, it started disappearing. By the time most of those flashy auto show concepts reached production reality, the midgate quietly died off.
Toyota watched all of this unfold.
And instead of saying, “Yeah, maybe let’s not,” they said, “What if we did something even stranger?”
Enter the Tiny Truck That Makes No Sense
Meet the Toyota bB Open Deck, arguably one of the most un-Toyota things Toyota has ever built.
At first glance, it looks like the world’s smallest pickup truck. But it’s not a traditional truck, and it’s not even one of Japan’s tiny kei cars. Instead, it’s based on the Toyota bB, a boxy, youth-oriented hatch designed as a “black box,” essentially an audio system on wheels.
Yes, Toyota took a quirky subcompact hatchback… and turned it into a pseudo-pickup with a midgate-style setup.
Because of course they did.
Under the hood, it kept things very Toyota: a 1.5-liter four-cylinder making a whopping 108 horsepower, with seating for four adults. Totally normal.
Everything else? Not normal.
Engineering… But Make It Complicated
Toyota didn’t just bolt a bed onto the back and call it a day. They re-engineered the entire rear structure.
The roof was shortened. The rear hatch was cut off at the beltline and converted into a fold-down tailgate. The rear glass flips up. And behind the back seats, there’s an openable panel that either seals the cabin—or folds down to extend the bed.
That’s not a feature. That’s a sequence.
And the bed itself? It’s tiny—about 43 inches wide and just 18 inches long. You’re not hauling lumber back there. You’re hauling a cooler and maybe your expectations.
But then Toyota adds another twist: the body is asymmetrical.
On one side, you get conventional front-hinged doors and a B-pillar. On the other side, there’s a rear-hinged “suicide” door with no B-pillar at all—something you’d later see on vehicles like the Toyota FJ Cruiser.
Fold everything down—rear seats, front passenger seat, panels—and suddenly you’ve got over 6.5 feet of cargo length.
Which is impressive… if you’re willing to reconfigure half the vehicle every time you need it.
It Was Real And… AND It Actually Sold!
Here’s the part that really makes you stop and go, “Wait, Toyota actually approved this?”
They built it. They sold it. And people bought it.
The Open Deck debuted as a concept at the Tokyo Auto Show in 1999 and entered limited production in 2001. It was sold exclusively in Japan and never engineered to meet North American or European safety standards, which, given the complexity here aka our politicians, is probably not surprising.
Production lasted about a year and a half.
Total units sold? Just 2,516 or OMG they actually sold TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN!
So yeah, duh, it’s rare. But it wasn’t just a concept. This was a real product you could walk into a dealership and purchase.
The Normal Toyota Story Happening at the Same Time
What makes this even more unbelievable is what was happening alongside it.
Toyota positioned the bB, and its sibling, the ist (pronounced ‘east’), as youth-focused, highly customizable vehicles. It shared the subcompact platform of the Toyota Vitz and Yaris (Echo in the U.S.).
The bB and the ist were both produced at the Takaoka Assembly plant in Toyota City, Japan, beginning in 2000 and quickly became the best-selling vehicle platform in Japan by the mid 2000s. The youth-focused xB and ist were intended for extensive customization by the buyer.
Buyers could choose between different engines (1.3L or 1.5L), transmissions (manual or automatic), drivetrains (FWD or AWD), seating layouts, and a wide array of dealer-installed audio systems and wheel options.
Some models even arrived at dealerships without a stereo or wheel covers, letting buyers customize them on the spot.
That flexibility and popularity eventually led to the platform being adapted for the U.S. market as the Scion xB and xA, helping Scion grow into a major player and briefly outsell brands like Volvo and Subaru.
So while Toyota was executing one of the most disciplined, well-planned product strategies in the industry…
They were also building a tiny, asymmetrical, midgate-equipped not-quite-truck on the side.
Built Outside the Usual Toyota Playbook
Even the production story is unusual.
Most Toyota vehicles are built in plants owned directly by Toyota Motor Corporation. In fact, there are numerous assembly plants clustered around Toyota City alone.
But the bB Open Deck? It was produced by Toyota Industries Corporation at its Nagakusa Plant near Nagoya.
That’s part of a broader network of affiliated manufacturers—like Toyota Auto Body, Daihatsu, and others—that handle specialized or niche production.
Which feels fitting.
Because if you’re going to build something this unconventional, maybe you don’t do it on the same line as the Camry.
Seriously, How Did This Get Approved?
That’s really the takeaway here.
Toyota, the company known for conservative engineering, predictable design, and relentless focus on reliability, looked at a tiny hatchback and decided to turn it into a part-time pickup with a multi-stage folding bed system, asymmetrical doors and just enough cargo space for a weekend cooler.
And they didn’t just sketch it.
They built it. Sold it. And sent it out into the world.
You can’t help but wonder: how many meetings did this take? Or more importantly, how did nobody shut it down?
Because this isn’t just unusual for the industry.
It’s unusual for Toyota.
The post Can you believe this came from Toyota? The Toyota bB Open Deck was Just WILD! appeared first on Pickup Truck +SUV Talk.
