Here in America at least, small trucks are dead, as are the -amino and -chero car-truck mashups of decades past. For the most part those are both good things. But every now and then we come across a modern car converted into a pickup-like vehicle that makes us wish things were different. The MINI Paceman Adventure is one of those cars.

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While we don't hold much in the way of love for the standard Paceman, the Adventure takes all of its weird quirks and makes them irrelevant, by adding even weirder, more useful quirks, like a light bar on the roof and a tiny cargo bed in the back.

Awkward and ungainly are fair criticisms of a design-first compact car. But those same traits become strengths in a creation like the Paceman Adventure. Designed by students and instructors at the BMW plants in Munich and Dingolfing, the one-off MINI pickup was built as an exhibition of the skill and talent in the apprentice program.

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Beyond the obvious modifications to turn the rear roofed cargo area into a pickup bed, the Paceman Adventure also received a new suspension, special off-road tires, and a snorkel air intake. The Paceman Adventure is painted in a unique Junge Green metallic finish.

MINI has no plans to sell a production version of the Paceman Adventure, but we wish it did.