Found on eBay: 1959 Goliath Express 1100 pickup

If you want to acquire a vintage truck, but want to be sure you'll have the only one of its kind east or west of the Mississippi, we may just have the truck for you. But it's a bit of a fixer upper.

Goliath is not a well-known German marque on this side of the Atlantic, to put it mildly, and the Express 1100 is one of its more conventional looking models. We point this out because some of its other truck offerings in this eight category were three-wheeled. But that doesn't change the fact that the Goliath is sure to turn heads with its cheeky appearance.

his particular example is said to have belonged to a former Mercedes-Benz executive (which is who you had to be to get parts for it over there, we assume). Upon the executive's return to Germany, truck passed into the hands of a collector around 2005. In 2012 the truck went up for sale and was even featured in an article on hooniverse.com, at that time passing to the current seller. The seller claims to have spent $15,000 on the truck in the time he's had it, tending to its mechanical needs, but its cosmetic needs appear to have been unaddressed.

Here's what the seller said almost a year ago about how he found it:

"I was intrigued enough to bid on it from a few pictures (that were over a decade old) and don't have any remorse. I have met MANY more good people along the way. The truck is fun/neat/unique - just don't have the room for it and think it deserves more TLC/time (and a garage) than I can afford to provide (body/paint/bed restoration) because it is so rare. I know of 1 truck in PA (euro-spec) and only very recently learned of another one in NM."

The West German-made Goliath Express 1100 used a four cylinder boxer four-stroke water cooled engine. Goliath was part of Borgward, so the truck actually uses the Goliath/Hansa 1100 sedan (who doesn't remember those?) running gear, though the transmission in the pickup is a little different. And by that we mean that the truck is somewhat slow due to low gearing. Not that many of these were made, and they were a rare sight even when new. The original boxer engines in these trucks are said to be quite underpowered, so we're not ruling out an engine swap somewhere down the line if this truck is to be used.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the truck, visually anyway, is the high-mounted bed sitting over the wheel arches. It's a little surprising to see that the design of the bed wasn't handled a little differently, with a lower entry and higher sides, but who are we to second-guess post-war Borgward engineering?

The seller says that he doesn't have the room for it anymore, nor the money to restore it, but he has managed to replace a few things in the year that he's had it. The seller claims that he's bought four new tires, installed a new ground cable, a new battery, and repaired the fuel tank. The seller also states that he has also had the brake fluid replaced, and that the carburetor has received a tune up.