Today’s Nice Price or No Dice Toyota could let you live out your Top Gear fantasy of owning an un-killable truck. Let’s see if its price tag is equally as fantastical or if it kills the deal.
Some mysteries are better left unsolved — questions like will that clown really eat me? or, is that room-temperature potato salad safe to consume? You know, leave well-enough alone and all that.
In the case of yesterday’s 1971 Mazda 1800 project car, the question of what could be done with the lovely but wanting car was quite the conundrum, and in the end, probably best left unresolved. Fortunately, the car’s $5,999 asking price aided in that answer avoidance since the majority of you felt it to be unquestionably too high. That dunned the Mazda with a 75 percent No Dice loss.
There’s no question about what one might do with today’s 1994 Toyota Pickup. The easy choice is to simply get in it, twist the key, and then go off and do stuff. No other vehicle, save for the Voyager spacecraft twinsies has garnered the sort of un-impugnable reputation for going the distance without complaint as has the Toyota truck. As evidence, this Toyota has already done 287,000 miles.
That’s ok though because the seller says it still “runs great” and will “go another 100,000 miles easy.” That’s not to say this truck hasn’t had its knocks along the way.
On the outside, things look pretty good down the driver’s side, with decent-appearing paint and no significant signs of road rot. Down the passenger side, however, things are a bit less pretty. There you’ll find a sizable dent in the bodywork starting just behind the door and extending to the fuel filler on the side of the bed. It makes the truck look like it had a most memorable weekend at the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but doesn’t seem bad enough to have racked the frame or anything. The bed interior is spray-lined and offers a working gate so the truck can still get its work on. The present owner seems to be keeping some bags of sand back there for when things get slippery.
The interior has seemingly seen some shit too and while it’s mostly intact, it does sport a pair of buckets out of another car. Those are heavily bolstered which might make getting in and out of the standard cab truck a bit of a hassle. The cloth upholstery looks good as does the rest of the simple interior, even if in the pictures it does have an excess amount of crap floating around behind the seats.
The ad says the truck is a four-cylinder and that means Toyota’s 2.4 liter 22R. In this year that was able to cough up 117 horsepower and 140 lb-ft of torque. Behind the stalwart four, and sending power back to the rear axle only, is a five-speed manual. According to the seller, oil changes have been made at 3,000-mile intervals and the truck is presently fitted with new tires, shocks and a battery. On the downside, there’s a dashboard bulb that needs replacing and the seller says the engine could stand a valve adjustment. And yes, I’m just as surprised as you are that an engine this modern still requires manual valve lash adjustment.
In fact, it’s pretty surprising that a Toyota Pickup would need anything other than filling its gas tank to keep it going. The Top Gear trio couldn’t kill one and they’re experts at destroying things. I think that’s what Clarkson majored in at university.
This truck has already gone more miles than one would normally ask of a vehicle without having jacked up the radiator cap at some point along the way and replaced everything else underneath. That’s just the nature of the beast and while this truck isn’t aesthetically perfect, it’s still probably going to be one of the most reliable rides you’re likely to find even with all the miles it has under its belt. What might that be worth?
The seller is asking $2,800 for the clean-title truck, and we now need to decide whether that’s a fair deal or not. What do you say, is this seemingly stalwart pickup worth that $2,800 asking? Or, does that burned-out dash light crush the deal?
You decide!
Seattle, Washington, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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