Plymouth built plenty of memorable cars before disappearing in 2001, but there’s a good chance you’ve never seen anything carrying the badge quite like this. It’s part compact pickup, part coachbuilt curiosity, and unmistakably a product of the early 1980s.
This is a 1981 Plymouth Arrow Pickup converted by Sunrader, the California company known for its fiberglass recreational vehicle conversions. Rather than simply dropping a camper onto the bed, Sunrader extensively altered the little truck’s body.
The result is the wonderfully strange machine you see here, complete with an extended passenger compartment and fiberglass bodywork that makes a regular Arrow Pickup look positively conventional. Richmond Auctions says enthusiast research has identified only two surviving examples.
This one is now part of the McCandless Collection and is being offered without reserve at Richmond Auctions’ Fall Spectacular. If obscure Mopar history is your thing, finding anything like this could prove difficult.
It’s A Plymouth With Mitsubishi Roots
The Arrow Pickup itself was a captive import, built in Japan by Mitsubishi and sold by Plymouth as an answer to increasingly popular compact trucks from Toyota, Datsun, and others. Its VIN identifies this example as a two-wheel-drive conventional-cab truck assembled at Mitsubishi’s Nagoya facility.
Under the hood, it has a 2.6-liter four-cylinder producing 105 horsepower when new, paired here with a manual transmission. Performance clearly wasn’t the point, even before Sunrader added its unusual bodywork.
What makes this truck interesting is what happened afterward. Sunrader extended the passenger area and incorporated fiberglass bodywork into the conversion rather than treating the Arrow as a conventional pickup carrying a removable camper.
One Of Two Known Survivors
Documentation surrounding these conversions is scarce, which makes assigning a definitive production number difficult. Richmond Auctions carefully describes the truck as one of only two known examples, based on enthusiast research and records surrounding the Sunrader conversions.
This particular Arrow has surfaced publicly before. It was advertised on eBay in 2014 before Mike McCandless acquired it in 2022 and added it to the McCandless Collection.
Now It’s Looking For Another Home
The Arrow Sunrader is scheduled to cross the block at Richmond Auctions’ Fall Spectacular at the Savoy Automobile Museum in Georgia. It’s being offered without reserve, so there is no minimum price preventing it from selling.
There are faster Mopars, prettier Mopars, and certainly more valuable Mopars. Few, however, are likely to generate as many confused questions at a cars and coffee event.
Whatever you call this wonderfully bizarre Plymouth-Mitsubishi-Sunrader mashup, boring definitely isn’t one of the options. Let us know your thoughts about it in the comments.