Subaru Mini-Caterer

Weird Car of the Day #510: 1968 Subaru Mini-Caterer Model 500 – Glizzy express

Subaru Mini-Caterer Model 500 illustration

Over 60 U.S. mpg and a look described by its own marketing materials as "cheap and ugly" was a bold strategy to launch Subaru in America, founded in 1967 in Philadelphia before staking its first real corporate headquarters across the Delaware river in Pennsauken, New Jersey.

New Jersey, for the unaware, has the states of Delaware to the south, Pennsylvania to the west, New York to the north and the Atlantic ocean to the east. Just 20-25 miles away from the tip of New Jersey is Coney Island, New York, where German immigrants helped to popularize the hot dog in America.

There's plenty of dispute on who, what, where, when, how, and why those first hot dogs were sold…I mean frankfurters…err…wieners, or is it Vienna sausages…?

But there's no debate on what Malcolm Bricklin was busy doing in 1968: importing Subaru 360s as the Japanese company's sole U.S. distributor and getting high off his own supply of potential uses for the vehicles.

Subaru Mini-Caterer brochure; I did my best to enlarge but the scans I've been able to find online are low quality • Subaru

Exhibit A: a small number of Subaru (360) Trucks, modified by Admar in Long Island City, New York, to house an all stainless steel catering rig.

Admar, a subsidiary of Worksman Cycles, is the inventor of stainless steel hotdog carts; its parent company is responsible for those Good Humor-style ice cream fridge tricycles.

For Subaru, partnering with a quality supplier was essential for credibility but not strictly necessary—very few were made. As owner-operators, cart owners would have needed to buy the Subaru Mini-Caterer outright, a tough sell even with 50 mpg.

While food regulations vary based on locale, other regulations (you know, the ones that would prevent someone from hopping a curb and selling hot dogs outside of a stadium) are clear cut across North America: no parking, probably.

Better, and less expensive, to get a push cart instead.

Vintage photo of a New Jersey hot dog vendor, with both a Subaru Mini-Caterer and a second-generation Toyota Stout truck to tow it with in operation during the late 1990s, if the camera date stamp is to be believed! • Facebook

The truck itself was properly basic and, among a sea of Detroit iron, completely alien in 1968. All Subaru 360-based Trucks and Vans are believed to have been painted in the same shade of baby blue.

Subaru quotes a 55 mph (88 km/h) top speed, 50 U.S. mpg, and a load capacity of 1,000 lbs.

For Mini-Caterer duty, one of the truck's non-structural fold-down sides was removed to accommodate the catering equipment, itself weighing 250 lbs:

Insulated stainless steel cooler and cold storage compartments
Stainies steel frankfurter stove and steamtable pan with 5 compartments
Stainless steel show case with plexiglass sliding doors
One 20 lb. bottled gas tank, regulator, lines and fittings with gas burners and safety pilot lights
Straw, napkin storage and a bottle opener
Two-tone stencilled umbrella
Large, flat serving areas
Optional combination coffee urn (8 U.S. gallons water, 3 gallons coffee)

Measured capacity, as in how many hot dogs could be served, seems quite impressive for a tiny 360cc truck: 500 frankfurter rolls, 'hot and cold sandwiches' which I didn't know was a unit of measurement, and 300 bottles of soda.

One of the only reasons Bricklin was able to import the tiny Subarus at all was because they weighed less than 1,000 lbs, literally driving through import restrictions and loopholes to find itself being bullied in traffic or sassed by Consumer Reports for not being "safe".

Within a year or two, buyers had all but dried up for the 360 car; less were interested in the van or truck.

Fewer than five Mini-Caterers are believed to have survived.

These days, with most cities happily accepting coffee shop kei trucks, food trucks, and other mobile food vendors, I feel as though this tiny catering truck presents a forgotten example of a special edition that arrived way before its time.

Surviving Mini-Caterers look, incredibly, normal in 2026.

That leaves just one conclusion: Subaru cooked here.