LITTLE RED, OUR 1990 TOYOTA PICKUP

Why did we end up choosing a Toyota Pickup for our journey?  Reliability was the key factor. I’ve owned Toyotas in the past, seen them with 500,000+ km beat relentlessly in the Wadi Rum desert, and knew that we’d be able to find parts anywhere if/when something does break.

Originally, I was cruising Craigslist constantly hoping anything would come up in my budget. In all fairness, I didn’t really have a budget set at the time so I was really just looking for something that was a deal I couldn’t pass up. I searched for Toyota Pickups, 4Runners, Tacomas, 60 and 80 Series Land Cruisers.  It seems as though anything with a Toyota badge sells as if it is made of gold in the Pacific North West.   Finding one that we could “afford” was more difficult than expected.

Through a string of exceptionally good luck I was able to pick up a 1990 Toyota Pickup from my mom and step-dad for pretty much nothing.  By “pretty much nothing”, I mean nothing.  It didn’t pass AirCare (smog) and has some drivability issues that wasn’t worth the original owners time to fix. They bought a new Tacoma, Mom and Barry acquired it through a trade of some sort, it was subsequently used hard as a beater work truck, and when everyone was done with it, we took over. Was it meant to be?  I think so.

Details (The short list):

• 1989 Toyota Pickup

• 22RE 2.4L (Only 112hp, but lots of heart)

• 5 Speed

• Sweet 1990’s decals (I was going to remove them, but now I think that they’re badass.)