The smallest panel truck ever produced by Chevrolet in the U.S. must be the Vega-based Panel Express of 1971-75.

When the Vega, Chevrolet’s entry in the emerging subcompact market in the USA, was introduced on September 10, 1970,, there were three available body styles: A two-door notchback Sedan, a slope-roofed three-door hatchback, and the Kammback, a stylish two-door station wagon. Just kidding. There was a fourth—a miniature sedan delivery called the Vega Panel Express.

It’s not giving anything away to report that the Panel Express was closely based on the Kammback wagon. It used the same two-door body shell and one-piece tailgate as the Kammback, not to mention the same unitized platform and 2.3-liter (140 cubic inches) single-overhead cam four as the rest of the Vegas.

But where the Kammback featured an expanse of safety glass in each rear quarter, the Panel Express featured a sheet-metal panel fastened into the same opening.  Presto, a subcompact delivery. The panel area, the marketing team decided, would be a key selling point: Commercial customers could use this space to transform the Panel Express into a rolling billboard to advertise their goods and services.

Inside, the Panel Express was stripped to the bone. The wagon’s rear seat was deleted, while the cargo area and deck were painted steel. There was no front passenger seat in base specification, either, though one could be added at extra cost (RPO A61, $67.15) which included a right-side sun visor and seat belt. Officially classified as a half-ton, single-seat truck, the Panel Express did not require headrests for the seats and other government-mandated safety equipment for passenger cars. Thus de-contented, the Panel Express was originally priced at $2,138, several hundred bucks cheaper than the more civilized Kammback wagon at $2,328.

There was a limited market for the Panel Express, Chevrolet discovered. Trouble was, truck-based vans had essentially erased the car-based sedan delivery market some years before. Only 7,800 were produced in 1971, the dinky truck’s first and best year. Sales trailed off from there: 4,414 in 1972 and 4,289 in 1974, when the Panel Express received the same 5-mph bumpers and slanted front fascia as the rest of the Vega line (above).

In 1975, Chevrolet sold just 1,525 copies of the Panel Express, and that proved to be the final year. The Vega would continue through 1977, but without the delivery model. Chevy did experiment with other possibilities for commercial variants of the Vega, for example the pickup prototype from 1973 pictured below. However, since Chevrolet was already importing the popular LUV (Light Utility Vehicle, a rebadged Isuzu Faster), it seems there was little to no chance that a Vega Pickup Express would ever see production.