Honda Made a Factory Tandem-Axle Kei Truck With Tank Treads, and One’s For Sale in America
This over a 6×6 Ram any day.
Maybe I'm jaded, but 6x6 trucks feel too self-serious to be cool anymore. The owners tend to look like clout chasers who want the biggest truck possible for... Some reason. You fill that blank. But you won't look that way if you seek the opposite superlative, like the rare six-wheeled 1994 Honda Acty Crawler that just came up for sale in New Hampshire.
Listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace, this Honda Acty is a kei truck with a rare optional tandem rear axle. This "Crawler" version was available only by factory special order according to The Amazo Effect, which describes it as working as follows.
The Crawler seems to have been built using the 4x4 Acty Attack's four-wheel-drive system, meaning only the front of the two rear axles is powered. (That axle is a locker though, according to Northeast Auto Imports.) So technically that makes it a 4x6, though the rears could be linked with included slip-on tracks.
Power came from a 656-cc single-cam three-cylinder that turned a four-speed manual transmission, featuring additional low-ratio crawling gears in both forward and reverse. You could also apparently order one with skis in place of its front wheels. Clearly, these were meant to be used in places with soft, maybe slick terrain that wheeled vehicles might not handle well.
There's some debate over how long the Crawler was available, and how many were built. The Amazo Effect says it was offered from 1994 to 1999, though JDM Export says it was '94-only. In any case, it's agreed they're rare. One owner commented on Reddit that there were "under 500" made, while other sources indicate 120, or as few as 20. That seems dubious given the number that have been sold in recent years, including the example up in New Hampshire.
It's well-traveled at 65,700 miles, and extremely pricey for a kei truck at $26,500. But I'll tell you one thing: I'd make a beeline for this thing at a car show over any Ferrari ever built. And I suspect I'm not the only one.
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