Over the last year, I have become quite friendly with a salvage yard in Australia that has helped immensely with my 1981 Toyota HiAce project. By “helped”, I mean they have cut apart several vans to send me good scrap metal to repair mine; located a replacement tailgate free of body filler to send to the U.S.; and repeatedly looked for, and procured, small trim items delivered for a very fair price. That’s why I check out their eBay page often, as they always have awesome rigs like this 1991 Nissan Patrol / Ford Maverick here on eBay, listed for just $5,500 AU.
The company’s name is Hi-Way Auto Wreckers in Bundaberg, and they have a tendency to get awesome off-road rigs that never made their way stateside. This is technically a Ford Maverick, but it’s really a Nissan Patrol wearing Ford badges. It also previously belonged to a rural department of Australia’s fire brigade, and is equipped with all sorts of useful equipment, like a 4.2L turbodiesel and heavy-duty bullbar and towbar.
The interior appears quite tidy for a truck that has spent some time in private ownership after retirement from the fire brigade. It’s not exactly pretty, but that’s not the point of a rig like this. And heck, it is even has a sheepskin cover on the dash! Most truck owners wouldn’t bother. The body appears quite nice, and it looks like the rear bed is slightly more utilitarian than what originally came stock.
The 4.2L is a straight-six, so this mill should yield plenty of stump-pulling strength while likely being totally overbuilt if it did duty in Nissan’s legendary Patrol trucks. The best part about buying from Australia is the favorable strength of the dollar against their currency, so the sale price should help soften the blow of shipping a vehicle all the way from the Land Down Under.
Buying a truck from Australia obviously eliminates the hassle with extensive rust.But, just out of curiousity, how much $ are we talking about dragging a rig from down under…?I’d consider a couple of other Aussie-only vehicles to stuff into a container before this goes into…?
I’d buy an Aussie designed and built truck if it were sold here in the USA. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be many car makers that build in either country. We have to rely on China, India, the Middle East, to produce our goods. That’s damned unacceptable.
Haha.
Joke of the Day from Barn Finds.
Only 7 grand USA dollars for shipping costs, plus purchase price….😂🤣
Some body got it wrong. We can import a 20 foot container from the USA either east or west coast with a couple of cars with all of our import duties taxes etc for $ 3000 US ( about $2200 $US on current exchange rates ) every day of the week.
Unfortunately our car manufacturers all closed down over the past couple of years so there is no manufacturing here any more. but Ford, GM and Toyota to name a few all have big styling studios and design engineers here and many of the recent releases in the US were designed here.
The first of the new generation Camaro’s was designed here in Melbourne ( it wasn’t unusual to see them driving around the streets with Left Hand Drive stickers in the window ). The current Ford Ranger SUV /Pickup was also designed here in Melbourne to name a couple and there are lots more. Even Boeing has a manufacturing facility here and we produce parts for the F16 fighters and the latest Dreamliner Go figure
I sold these when they were new, in reality it is a Nissan Patrol and even the glass would still have Nissan on it as well as other places.