While new paint colors are usually pretty low on my list of writing priorities, one thing will always and forever be at the top of that list, and it’s Weird Little Guys (non-gendered). And no, I’m not talking about Ben Shapiro. I’m talking about the vehicles you have to commend someone for being brave enough to build, because U.S. Americans will never buy them in large numbers. Those consumer-focused posts? I write those so my numbers look good enough to get away with pursuing my true passion, stories about Weird Little Guys like the Telo MT1 minitruck that few people will ever read.
I was admittedly a little late to the Telo party, but the moment I saw it, I fell in love. It’s weird. It’s little. It’s basically an electric kei truck for the U.S. that offers five seats, a five-foot bed (up to eight feet if you drop the midgate), 500 horsepower and 350 miles of range in a footprint roughly the size of a Mini Cooper. Not the crossover or four-door Mini, either. The two-door. It also looks like nothing else on the road, and I desperately need this thing in my life.
Still, the last time I forced you to listen to me gush over the Telo MT1, I know everyone who read it was thinking the exact same thing: Sure, it’s a neat prototype, but what’s the point of a tiny, 500-hp truck that can’t drift? It’s also a foolish question, because of course the Telo MT1 can drift.
Mini drift truck
As if it read your minds and knew you had a burning desire to see the MT1 prototype hang its tail out on track, Telo’s latest promotional video focuses on exactly that at Sonoma. Assuming the specs don’t change, and the MT1 actually goes into production, you’ll be able to get a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive version with 300 horsepower or a dual-motor truck with all-wheel drive and 500 hp. Even if you get the all-wheel-drive model, though, you’ll still be able to power slide thanks to a drift mode that disables the front motor.
Throw on some cheap tires you don’t have to feel too bad about destroying, and what do you know, turns out 300 hp is still enough to live your drift dreams. It looks like it has a good bit of body roll, so you’d probably want to upgrade the suspension before you actually hit the track in your MT1, but you know what else has a good bit of body roll stock? The ND Miata, and as a rule, everyone here has to love the ND Miata. Even if you’re too tall to fit, you’re still required to at least love the idea of the ND Miata.
Granted, this is only a prototype, and with Canoo finally dead, weird, little cab-forward pickup trucks don’t exactly have the best record of making it to production in the U.S., so Telo could still break my heart. I may never get to drift an MT1. Still, I want to believe. I mean, the Chief Technology Officer is Plugshare founder Forrest North, who also worked on the original Tesla Roadster. Surely, he wouldn’t let me down.
You aren’t going to let me down, right, Telo? Right, Telo?
