ASK THE MXPERTS: MAKING A SUBARU BAJA INTO A REAL PICKUP TRUCK

The Subaru Baja was a failure, but MXA found a way to load our bikes in it.

Dear MXA,
I own a 2005 Subaru Baja. It is basically a Subaru Outback with a small pickup truck bed attached to the unibody chassis. A couple of months ago I saw a photo on MXA’s website of a Subaru Baja that had motorcycle ramps that went up onto the cab. I’d love to put those ramps on my Baja so that I could use it to get my bike to the track. Where can I order them?

You are one of only a handful of people who bought the 2002 to 2006 Subaru Baja. It sold so poorly that Subaru had to stockpile the excess Baja inventory that it didn’t sell. It took Subaru two years to get rid of the leftover Bajas. As for the ramps, they were designed by MXA’s Jody Weisel and built by AMP Research for Subaru and Hummer SEMA show trucks to prove that these pickup truck-like vehicles could actually carry a bike. AMP Research only made four of the weird ramps, and MXA was given a rack-equipped Baja to use as proof of concept.

John Bertagnolli’s cheap long bed Baja.

Although Jody‚’s super clean AMP Research Ramps are certainly the sophisticated way to pack two dirt bikes in a Subaru Baja, there is also a low-tech, low-cost method for cramming two bikes into one of these weird but versatile vehicles. Reader John Bertagnolli proved that all you needed was a sheet of plywood, preferably covered in metal to turn you short bed Baja into a long bed Baja.