The light cuts low across a gravel turnout. Campfire smoke folds into golden haze as someone rinses salt from their face using water from a steel bottle balanced on the Slate’s tailgate. There are no badge glints, no chrome reflections, just flat surfaces the color of dry cement. On paper, it’s a pickup, but in this moment, it’s a bench, a kitchen, a gear table. And in the hush between waves crashing beyond the trees, the silence of its electric heart feels right. No idling hum. No waste heat. Just stillness with a charge port.

Designer: Slate Auto

Slate doesn’t chase power fantasies or luxury posturing. It arrives stripped to the bone. And that’s where the possibilities begin.

Brutal Simplicity, Measured Lines

Compact without apology, the Slate Truck shrinks the bloated dimensions we’ve come to expect from American pickups. The form is a composition of right angles and practical intentions. Short overhangs place it confidently over rough terrain or tight alleys, while chamfered corners break the light in subtle shifts. It’s not trying to be aggressive. It’s trying to be adaptable.

The face is cartoon-clear: round headlights, blocky panels, and a plastic bumper that isn’t pretending to be more. There’s an openness in its expression, one that doesn’t feel defensive. Flared arches hold steel wheels that sit proud and unpolished, the kind that look better with dust caked in their edges.

Where metal would ripple, Slate’s polypropylene skin stays consistent. This choice isn’t about pretending to be premium. It’s about honesty. Every panel has a matte tactility, impervious to light scratches and ready to wear stories like a well-loved duffel. The rear window tilts open like a wink, inviting airflow or a tailgate nap. You can sense how it was built to be used, not curated.

Inside the Absence

Slide into the cabin, and you don’t feel overwhelmed. No stitched leather, no backlit glass panels or screens posing as dashboards. Instead, there’s space. A flat dash stretches wide with analog restraint. The HVAC knobs click with a purpose you can feel in your fingers. The digital gauge cluster is more tool than trophy, and your phone slots in as the interface you already trust.

Door panels are fabric-wrapped where it counts, and the seats wear a heathered textile that speaks softly about dirt, wear, and long drives home from muddy trailheads. There are no power windows here. A crank begs to be spun. It’s familiar and oddly satisfying, like the click of a cassette tape.

Nothing inside tries to impress. Everything tries to work. That clarity brings a different kind of luxury, the kind that comes from knowing what you need and nothing more.

What Plastic Can Feel Like

Touch the body and you’ll find texture with grip. These are not panels polished to a mirror’s edge, but material meant to live outside. It resists fingerprints, shrugs off the path of brambles, and welcomes vinyl wraps like a sketchbook welcomes ink. The base gray isn’t neutral. It’s an invitation.

Each panel is molded rather than stamped. You feel it in the consistency, in the uniform depth and durability. Even the surface noise is different. Tap it and the tone is softer, less metallic, more muted. Less armor, more shell.

Climate knobs are chunky, with a resistance that slows the motion of your wrist. They were made to be turned by gloved hands or wet fingers. The glovebox opens with a slide, not a latch, and swallows bulky objects without complaint. When everything is optional, function becomes the first aesthetic.

A Cabin Tuned for Nature

With no drivetrain rattle and no exhaust drone, you hear things you’ve forgotten in modern cars. The slap of branches. Wind threading through side mirrors. A bird call in stereo. Even the thud of gear hitting the bed feels closer, like it belongs to the vehicle instead of bouncing off it.

The Slate invites you to drive with the windows down, even if you crank them manually. There’s something pure about hearing tires chew gravel without a soundproofed filter. Something intimate about a truck that doesn’t isolate you from the places you’ve gone to find.

Visibility comes not from augmented mirrors or surround-view stitching, but from clean lines and thin pillars. The proportions are honest. The roofline doesn’t droop. The tail doesn’t puff out. You see where it ends because it’s shaped to be seen.

Function You Can Touch

The Slate’s most radical idea isn’t its electric drivetrain or price point. It’s the idea that the vehicle changes as you do. Accessories aren’t bolt-on flair. They’re choices that reflect what you need today and leave space for tomorrow.

A flat-pack SUV kit adds seats, safety hardware, and a fiberglass roof that slots into place with purpose. Want a camper one year and a grocery hauler the next? It’s not a new car, it’s a new configuration. Roof racks and rear carriers clip on without begging for bodywork. Wraps apply like stickers, not paint jobs.

Even the dashboard becomes a canvas. Decorative vents accept clip-on charms, Slatelets, they call them, that mark ownership with whimsy. Like a charm bracelet if charm bracelets came in truck form.

A Different Way Forward

Slate doesn’t preach sustainability through reclaimed materials or carbon offsets. It does it through reduction. Through choosing what doesn’t need to exist. No leather. No built-in speakers you’ll replace anyway. No touchscreen growing obsolete before the battery does.

The idea isn’t to innovate through excess. It’s to invite users back into the making. You can feel it in every crank, every exposed screw, every option skipped. This isn’t minimalism as style. It’s mechanical clarity.

What would happen if the next generation of cars weren’t about computing power or aggressive profiles, but about modularity, ease of repair, and ownership that grows with you? The Slate doesn’t answer that question. It lets you live into it.

And maybe that’s the future worth parking next to a cliffside, listening to the wind press through the conifers, while your board dries in the sun.

The post The Slate Truck: A Gray Shape for the Future of Freedom first appeared on Yanko Design.

Bandit9 Motors is well respected here at Yanko Design for their unique sense of going about for restomod conversions that have a piece of history associated with them. Kickstarting their exciting journey with motorbike restomods, the custom tuning shop moved onto the four wheels with the stunning Monaco electric car in pure black, and then later on the improved version of EVE Odyssey arrived.

Going back and forth between two-wheelers and four-wheelers alternatively, they’ve revealed the War Truck restomod under their coachbuilding division VAN DARYL Gallery. This will be their second project after the electric Batmobile under this sub-brand. The donor jeep for this build has a lot of history behind it, as it is one of the jeeps used by U.S. troops after the Vietnam War. Otherwise lying abandoned in obscurity and inevitable deterioration, the VAN DARYL War Truck (yes that’s what it is called) is infused with new life.

Designer: VAN DARYL

At heart the War Truck is an amalgam of intense military history with modern automotive aesthetics, reviving the tough vehicle into a restomod highlighted by a sci-fi treatment. Once VAN got the first jeep into their shop the truck was stripped down to see what old parts could still be relevant in the modern build. First, the team reinforced the custom-designed body with steel and aluminum frames to make it highly durable just like the Tesla Cybertruck. They also decided to increase the ground clearance by refitting the independent coil suspension. The front and rear drum brakes have been retained, encapsulated by the more modern steelie-inspired forged alloy wheels that have light aero-disc influence.

The boxy look is complemented by the rear-mounted full-spare tire housing, side-running exhausts, lightly flared fenders, bespoke steel bumper, retro-inspired LED headlights, and taillights that carry the same neo-retro design ethos. The edgy silhouettes are matched well by the rectangular windshield and mirrors, as well as the low-cut doors having wooden handles for the classic feel. According to  Villanueva “The War Truck isn’t just some homage or remake. To call it a ‘restoration’ would be an oversimplification. It is reimagined, rehabilitated, revived, and refined.”

On the inside, the jeep is drop-dead gorgeous with a purpose-built theme in pearl white. It comes with sports seats, modern switches to choose from various options, bespoke knobs, an infotainment display and an audio system. The steering and custom shift knob get the wooden bespoke treatment, while the widescreen instrument cluster panel is nothing short of impressive. The spacious and functional boot derives inspiration from yacht designs having teak-style wood deck trims. The whole interior can be customized as per the client’s needs with plenty of options to choose from.

Powering the guts of this vehicle is the battle-tested 4-cylinder, 2.3L engine but buyers can also opt for the powerful upgraded version, including one that is fully electric. The original version churns out 71hp and 128 ft-lbs of torque for a top speed of 100mph and a range of 300 miles per tank. In this configuration, the buyers can go for automatic or manual transmission variants. The handling and performance characteristics have been tuned to deliver maximum driving pleasure which makes the Wat Truck a force to reckon with. The vehicle hand-built on a made-to-order basis is available for order right away.

The post War Truck is an open configuration restomod EV based on battle-tested Vietnam war jeeps first appeared on Yanko Design.