Mercury’s Montego Sportshauler concept was designed to carry all kinds of off-road toys, but especially the six-wheeled Amphicat ATV.
Looking back at the Motor City’s golden age of car shows, it’s evident that many of the far-out dream cars and concepts were not necessarily built with production intent, but maybe just to grab the attention of the audience. The gee whiz factor, if you will: Draw the showgoers into the area with a compelling gimmick and as long as they’re here, they might also check out the more marketable vehicles on display. And who knows, maybe the gimmick will prove to have some potential. That, we’re guessing, was the mission of the 1971 Mercury Montego Sportshauler.
The two photos above tell the Sportshauler story. A customized Montego coupe, basically, its rear quarter panels were extended and a long hatch cover fabricated to provide an enclosed hauling area. The cargo: an Amphicat 6×6 all-terrain vehicle. Running on six high-flotation tires with track-vehicle steering via two levers, the Amphicat was a capable ATV, but it might be most familiar to Americans as the crazy little buggy in the children’s TV show, The Banana Splits. The Cycolac-bodied ATV was also featured in the 1975-77 science fiction series, Space 1999.
Reportedly, the Sportshauler was actually constructed on a Ranchero pickup body shell to make the fabrication work easier, then finished with customized exterior panels to look like a Mercury Montego, which shared the same Ford midsize platform. The promotional materials suggested that the two-seat Sportshauler could serve as a mobile toybox for all kinds of off-road fun machines, including minibikes and go-karts, not just the Amphicat. Another Ford show vehicle, the ’69 Ranchero Scrambler, employed a similar theme (see our feature here).
Wearing its original white and bronze paint, the Sportshauler made the scene at the 1971 Chicago Auto Show at McCormack Place and the Detroit Auto Show at Cobo Center. For the 1972 show season, the exterior styling was revised to more closely resemble a production Montego and the colors were changed to black and bronze. What happened to the show car after that isn’t known, but the Sportshauler has been reproduced as a 1/43 scale model, in both color schemes and complete with a miniature Amphicat.
