REO Runabout: The $21,500 'Ameri-Kei' Truck vs an Actual Kei Truck
A Dallas real estate broker revived the 120 year old REO name to build a $21,500 gas powered 'Ameri-Kei' truck, and 5,500 people put money down in six days. Here is how the REO Runabout stacks up against an actual kei truck you can buy today.
TL;DR: A Texas startup called REO Industries wants to sell you a $21,500 gas powered pickup it calls "Ameri-Kei," and 5,500 people threw down a $25 deposit in the first six days. The catch: it is not actually a kei truck, it weighs nearly two tons, and the first deliveries are penciled in for late 2028. A real imported kei truck costs less, hauls a useful load, and you can drive it home this month. The REO is interesting. It is not a reason to stop importing.
Every few months somebody announces they are going to build the cheap, simple truck America supposedly forgot how to make. Most of them vaporize. This one got 5,500 reservations in less than a week, so it is worth taking seriously. REO Industries, run out of Dallas, says it will build a body on frame pickup called the Runabout for $21,500, sell it direct to your driveway, and power it with a naturally aspirated four cylinder bolted to a six speed manual. The pitch leans hard on the kei truck wave that has swept American farms and job sites over the past five years. The founder even coined a class for it: "Ameri-Kei."
That word is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If you have spent any time around the real thing, the obvious question is whether a 180 inch long, 4,400 pound towing American truck has any business borrowing the kei name at all. So let us put the Runabout next to an actual kei truck and see what the marketing is hiding.
What REO Industries Is Actually Building
REO is planning three vehicles on one platform. The headliner is the Runabout T4X, a two door, two seat pickup with a steel drop side flatbed. Above it sit the T4C, a four door crew cab version, and the S4C, an SUV body on the same bones. All three share a four cylinder gas engine with no direct injection, your choice of a six speed manual or an automatic, and mechanically engaged four wheel drive operated by actual physical buttons instead of a touchscreen. REO is targeting more than 600 miles of range on a single tank, which is the kind of number that gets a contractor's attention.
The T4X measures about 180 inches long, roughly the footprint of a Mazda3 sedan, and stands close to 74 inches in both width and height. It is projected to weigh around 1,900 kilograms (about 4,180 pounds), carry a 544 kilogram (1,200 pound) payload, and tow two metric tons (about 4,400 pounds). Pricing starts at $21,500 for the base T4X, sold factory direct with no dealer markup. The company's REO Industries site is taking reservations now and the spec sheet is still aspirational, so treat every figure as a target rather than a promise.
The timeline is the part nobody wants to read. REO is aiming for a full reveal in the fourth quarter of 2026, pilot builds through 2027, and customer deliveries starting in late 2028. As Carscoops reported, that is an extraordinarily compressed schedule for a company that does not yet have a running prototype, let alone a factory. Plenty of better funded EV startups have promised similar timelines and missed by years.
The Man Behind the Mini Truck
Here is where it gets fun. REO Industries is the project of Zach De Bernardi, who is not a career automotive engineer. He is the founder and broker of Standard Real Estate in Dallas, a firm that has moved more than a billion dollars in property. He revived a genuinely historic badge to do it. The original REO Motor Car Company was founded in 1905 by Ransom Eli Olds, the same man behind Oldsmobile, and it built the legendary REO Speed Wagon that later lent its name to a rock band. De Bernardi secured rights to the name and is betting the heritage gives a brand new truck instant credibility.
Skeptics pounced immediately, and not without reason. As The Drive noted, a real estate guy promising a $21,500 American pickup off a $25 holding deposit sets off every vaporware alarm in the building. And yet the reservations are real. More than 5,500 people put money down in six days, which tells you exactly how starved the market is for a cheap, honest truck.
The most useful gut check came from The Autopian, whose writer spent 45 minutes on the phone with De Bernardi and came away convinced he is a genuine gearhead chasing a real product rather than running a grift. Believing in the truck and being able to mass produce it for $21,500 are two very different things, though. For perspective on how hard small trucks are to make work financially, Hagerty's history of the small truck is worth the read. The short version: regulations and economics killed the cheap small pickup once already.
Is It Even a Kei Truck?
No. Not close. And this matters more than it sounds, because "Ameri-Kei" is the entire marketing hook.
A real kei truck is bound by Japanese regulation to a tiny box: 11.2 feet long, under 4.9 feet wide, a 660cc engine making somewhere between 40 and 63 horsepower, and a legal payload around 770 pounds. The Suzuki Carry, Honda Acty, Daihatsu Hijet, and Subaru Sambar all live inside those dimensions. That is what makes them turn on a dime, sip fuel, and squeeze down a vineyard row or a barn aisle. The REO Runabout is a foot and a half longer, more than twice as heavy, and tows over four times what a Carry can pull. It is a small truck. It is not a kei truck.
Critics noticed something else. With its bare cabin, drop side bed, and stubby proportions, the Runabout looks an awful lot like a street legal side by side. RideApart went so far as to say REO is basically describing a Can Am Defender or Polaris Ranger with a license plate. That is not necessarily an insult, because a UTV you can drive on the highway at 65 miles per hour would actually be useful. But if you are cross shopping the Runabout against farm equipment, you should read our breakdown of a kei truck vs UTV first, because the real kei truck already fills that exact gap and does it today.
REO Runabout vs an Actual Kei Truck
Strip away the branding and line up the two trucks on the things that matter.
| Spec | REO Runabout T4X | Imported Kei Truck (e.g. Suzuki Carry) |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $21,500 (target) | $5,000 to $12,000 |
| Available | Late 2028 (projected) | Today |
| Length | ~180 in | ~133 in |
| Weight | ~4,180 lb | ~1,500 to 1,750 lb |
| Engine | 4 cyl gas (NA) | 660cc 3 cyl |
| Payload | ~1,200 lb | ~770 lb |
| Towing | ~4,400 lb | ~1,000 lb |
| Transmission | 6 speed manual or auto | 5 speed manual or auto |
| New or used | Brand new | 25+ years old |
The Runabout wins on payload, towing, highway manners, and the simple fact that it will be a brand new truck with a warranty and airbags. Those are not small things. If you genuinely need to tow two tons or run interstate miles every day, a kei truck is the wrong tool and always has been.
But look at the price and the calendar. You can buy a clean, fuel injected Suzuki Carry or Daihatsu Hijet right now for less than half the Runabout's projected sticker, drive it home this weekend, and put it to work Monday. A 25 year old kei truck imported through a broker lands in the $5,000 to $12,000 range all in, and there is real inventory sitting on dealer lots and in Japanese auction listings today. If you want to handle it yourself, our import guide walks through the whole process, and the federal rules live on the NHTSA importing page. There is no two year wait, no pilot build phase, no reservation queue. The truck exists.
For a lot of buyers, that is the whole argument. A kei truck is not a bet on a startup. It is a proven machine with 25 years of parts catalogs behind it.
What About the Slate Truck?
REO is not the only one chasing the cheap truck dream. The Slate Truck, the bare bones electric pickup that made headlines in 2025, plays in roughly the same price territory, lands around $20,000 after incentives, and claims a 1,550 pound payload with 2,000 pounds of towing. As AutoGuide framed it, REO is essentially the gas powered answer to Slate's EV.
The split is straightforward. Slate is an electric truck with 150 to 205 miles of range, which is plenty for around town but a problem if you live far from a charger or work off grid. REO is gas, claims 600 plus miles per tank, and offers a manual, which is catnip for the rural and enthusiast buyers who do not want a battery in their work truck. Both are betting the same thing: that millions of Americans are sick of paying $60,000 for a truck they use to haul mulch. They are probably right. Whether either company can actually deliver at the promised price is the open question, and neither has shipped a single unit to a paying customer yet.
Should You Wait or Import Now?
If you have $21,500 burning a hole in your pocket and you want a brand new American truck with a warranty, putting $25 down on a Runabout costs you almost nothing and reserves your spot. There is no harm in holding a place in line for something that might be great in 2028.
But do not let the reservation become a reason to delay a purchase you need now. If your fence needs mending, your trail needs running, or your small business needs a cheap hauler this season, waiting two years for an unproven truck makes no sense when a capable kei truck is sitting on a lot right now. Before you buy one, run through our pre purchase checklist so you do not inherit somebody's rust bucket, and confirm your state's rules in the state legality guide, because a handful of states still fight registration. The community over at r/keitruck is also a goldmine for real owner experiences with both the trucks and the importers. For a full picture of what these things actually cost to own, our kei truck cost guide breaks down the numbers beyond the sticker.
There is room for both stories to be true. The Ameri-Kei truck could turn into a great cheap pickup, and the imported kei truck could remain the smartest dollar in small hauling. One of them just happens to be available today.
The Bottom Line
The REO Runabout is the most interesting cheap truck announcement in years, and the 5,500 deposits prove the appetite is real. But "Ameri-Kei" is a marketing word, not a spec. The Runabout is a small American pickup that borrows kei truck vibes, not a kei truck, and it is more than two years and a successful manufacturing miracle away from your driveway. If you love the idea, drop your $25 and watch it develop, and follow outlets like MotorTrend as the prototype gets real. If you need a kei truck to do kei truck things, the real ones are cheaper, available now, and have a 25 year track record the Runabout will spend the next decade trying to earn. Reserve the dream. Import the reality.
