The small but tough little utes were almost as common as rural mailboxes in Australia through the 1980s and 1990s – just about every farm had one.

Made in Japan, the pint-sized workhorses were exported to various countries around the world, including the US and Canada where they were called Subaru “Brats”. Even former US president Ronald Reagan had one on his Californian ranch.

But their strongest and most enthusiastic following was in Australia, where the horizontally-challenged two-seater utes struck a chord and gained near cult status.

Compact but capable — with models ranging from front-wheel drive with selectable 4WD to what was, at the time, a revolutionary all-wheel-drive system — the Brumby could go anywhere a bigger ute could, and places they couldn’t. They were cheap to buy and ran on the smell of an oily rag which only added to their appeal.

There’s a fair chance many Beef Central readers in their mid-40s and 50s today learned to drive in a Brumby and acquired their early bush mechanic skills keeping one on the road with a spanner, WD40 and some fencing wire – reliability and simplicity was another key feature.

Size was the biggest limitation. The standard Brumby utes had a light but still useful payload capacity of 400kg. As one former Brumby owner recalled this week, you could actually lay a single swag down flat in the tub, as long as the tail board was down.

Just 1.4 metres high, 1.6 metres wide and 4.3 metres long, Brumby utes weren’t much bigger than the side-by-side vehicles now commonplace on many farms (For comparison a Polaris Ranger weighs in at 2m high, 1.6m wide and 3 meters long).

Despite their enormous popularity in Australia, the local market was said to be too small to warrant their continued manufacture globally and, having first brought the Brumby to Australia in 1978, Subaru discontinued the iconic line in 1994.

As a testament to their durability, 30 years later Brumby utes can still occasionally be spotted buzzing around paddock tracks and city streets. Online car sales websites currently list Brumby utes from $6500 to $30,000 – some with more than 400,000ks on the clock.

Now, in an era dominated by beefy dual-cabs and giant pick-up trucks, the pocket-rocket Subaru Brumby is reportedly set for a resurrection.

Prominent online car news website CarsGuide has this week reported Subaru is indeed planning to return the Brumby to Australian roads.

However, in news that may not be quite as welcome, the next-gen Brumby will not be in the same form previous owners of the feisty four-by-fours fondly remember.

Stating that the new Brumby “is happening”, CarsGuide reports the new version will be electric.

Details such as range or how the new utes will look remain a mystery – but on the latter question a digital artist commissioned by the online publication has made educated guess, as published on Facebook below:

The small ute that made a huge impression on Australian agriculture may well be on the road to making a comeback, but whether Aussie farms are ready to embrace a new electric version as warmly as they did the original, is something we’ll have to wait and see.