D 1980 Toyota HiLux 3/4 ton, Tony
by Pintopower
Here is our 550k mile Toyota HiLux. It is all original inside and out, I mean aside from the drivers seat that has been recovered 3 times. It is a great truck but has been in covered storage for 10 years. Tony is back on the road with a 5 speed trans, powdercoated wheels and weber carb! This is the original paint and color, 489 Beige
Proof that the HiLux is the best truck in history...Read on:
"It kicks the hell out of the Humvee.” Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger and now a fellow of the Center for a New American Security.
Guerrilla Trucks:
www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/10/14/why-rebel-group...
From:
editorial.autos.msn.com/listarticle.aspx?cp-documentid=11...
We know of only one truck with a war named after it: the Hilux. The Toyota War of 1987, between Chad and Libya, took its name from the lightweight Hilux trucks that proved decisive in fighting. Regiments of Hiluxes armed with bed-mounted 106-mm recoilless rifles sprinted through deserts and minefields. According to a French officer's contemporary account, the tribesmen aboard the Hiluxes had long been the best light cavalrymen in the world — just that now "they are mounted on Toyotas instead of horses."
The vehicular equivalent of an AK-47 in terms of widespread adoption, the Hilux joins the Land Cruiser and Corolla in Toyota's "Triumvirate of Total Trustworthiness." It takes a special vehicle for a manufacturer to brag that it's "unbreakable" — yes, Toyota really does, and decades of loyal drivers are likely to agree. (Unfortunately, many of those drivers in the U.S. have to keep their older Toyota trucks, as the current U.S.-market Tacoma has diverged genetically from the world's Hilux.)
A battered, flat-white Hilux is practically a standard-issue item for workers and volunteers with the United Nations, Red Cross, and innumerable organizations operating in inhospitable conditions all over the world. From Ethiopia to Yemen, Nicaragua to Afghanistan, the Hilux is highly regarded not only for its bulletproof reliability — sometimes literally — but also for its versatility. Tough body-on-frame construction, high ground clearance, and excellent agility make it ideal for a tremendous range of tasks.
In such esteem is the Hilux held, in fact, that the ever-present fraudsters have gotten in on the act: Places like Afghanistan have actually at times been flooded with imitation Hiluxes cobbled together from inferior vehicles — much to the disappointment of local fighters.
