It’s interesting to consider the trajectory of the Toyota Hilux in the United States. If you were assigning high school yearbook “Who’s Who” titles to vehicles, the little truck that could would clearly be labeled “Most Likely to Succeed.” Hard working, studious, and effortlessly charming, the early days of Toyota truck sales in the U.S. showed you clearly where the company would go with its highly successful Tacoma pickups. The early 1971 Hilux shown here on craigslist supposedly hasn’t run in 30 years, but somehow, it still looks like it’s ready to work. The seller is asking $2,000.
When Toyota entered the truck market in the 1960s, it didn’t make much of a splash. The rare Stout pickup was quite small and perhaps even forgettable, but if you do find one today, a Toyota enthusiast will quickly snatch it up. Regardless, the first run of the Hilux was really when momentum began building for Toyota. Unlike other small truck competitors, Toyota wasn’t trying to market it as a cute runabout that could be used like a commuter car during the wheel and pick up some potted plants on the weekend. Toyota wanted the Hilux to be perceived as a true workhorse, an image captured perfectly here with a home-brew stake-style bed extensions.
Still, these were 2WD trucks with modest powerplants. Yet somehow, the Toyota just seemed tougher, like it was meant for more than simple fuel efficient cruising. Once the reputation for durability was established with the early Hilux models, the rest is history once Toyota began offering 4 wheel drive. With the Hilux a known quantity at this point, sales took off briskly once the Hilux proved itself capable of going off road or driving through mud and snow. To this day, I’m not sure any other imported truck has a shot in heck of ever catching up with Toyota. The interior of this Hilux looks every part of a truck that’s been off the road for 30 years, but its spartan cabin will make it simple to refresh.
The bodywork is fairly rough and these aren’t valuable enough to deserve a full-scale restoration. But you could clean up the interior, replace the tires, find some OEM steel wheels and hubcaps, and call it a day (well, once the mechanical bits are sorted.) Speaking of, in North America, we got the 8R-C four-cylinder engine, which was generally good for 97 horsepower and 128 lb.-ft. of torque. This was the first run of the overhead-cam R engine series, and it represents a nice bump in power over the 12R found in other markets. The seller notes it is close to running but the carburetor throttle plates are seized, so bring a rebuild kit if you plan to buy.
If you really want to see how tough the Toyota Hilux was back in the day, watch the Top Gear episode named “Killing a Toyota” on YouTube. In short, they take a stock early 80s Hilux pickup and do horrible things to it. It will make you a fan of Toyota trucks, no matter what 4 x 4 you currently drive. I’ve had a Toyota 4 x 4 since 2015 and it’s one of the best vehicles I’ve ever owned.
Well, don’t that beat all! There’s proof that someone was as stupid as I was 55 years ago! Right down to the same color!
This is a grim reminder of one of the worst decisions of my life. I thought that, since I was working on and off the ranch, I could buy a compact pickup, put farm plates on it, use cheaper farm gas–legally, and use it to go back and forth to work, and justify the farm use by transporting parts…
Well… That 8RC engine wouldn’t run on Regular; it pinged and detonated on Premium. It wouldn’t start below Zero unless it was plugged in. Anything below freezing and Full Defrost could barely get a six inch peep hole in the driver’s side of the windshield and maybe a four inch in the passenger’s side–your feet froze.
It collapsed a piston at 32K miles and it cost me as much for the necessary parts as parts (and machining) on a Ford 360 V8 (parts over the Fleet Counter at the Ford dealership). And that 360 (’68 Ford 3/4 ton farm truck) had a good 80K mile headstart over the 32K miles. I might add that the Ford parts were readily available while everything for the Toyota, except for the head gasket, took nearly six weeks to come from Japan.
Then there was the reception from the locals. I picked up the mail and stopped by the coffee shop to chat with the guys. The conversation swung toward that small pickup. I guess you could say that there were some vets from the war who fought the Japanese and they weren’t very friendly toward it.
Overall, that was still pretty mild. Simply put, that Hilux left a lot to be desired. I eventually sold it to a local carpenter who used it for a “Gopher Truck.” Strange thing was, he loved it. Of course it never ran very far out of town.
I do have to say that it would plow snow almost as good as any 4×4. Put snow tires on the back, a couple of old John Deere 5020 cylinder heads in the bed (200+ lbs each) and that truck would go through anything.
It had very stiff suspension. I often had a ton of fertilizer in the back and it hardly pushed the back end down.
Now here’s the funny part: That old carpenter passed away some years later and that blue bomb sat in his widow’s back yard for 15 years. I approached her to see if she might be interested in selling it (back to me?!?!?!?) because I entertained the thought of restoring it. She told me that one of her boys wanted it.
And he eventually hauled it away.
Skuttlebutt says that he’s almost got it done!
Now, this truck. It looks like someone has changed the wheel hubs and drums. Those look like five-hole wheels to me. I vividly remember mine had six studs, like a Datsun. I think even a Mazda used six holes. I never attempted to see if Chevy truck wheels would fit but I have to say that they had to be close.
I have definitely mellowed out in my old age and it really wouldn’t bother me to drive around in one today. The builders were just like anyone else; they just wanted to sell you a truck…
I figured this would hit a nerve with Geomechs, and to be honest, one of the very few I’ve come across that actually had a bad experience. Oh, I’m sure there were others, like my distain for Jeep Wagoneers, but to most in Beer City, it never got that far. Geos experience with the coffee shop was very common. You had to have grapes to pull in the diner parking lot with one of these, sandwiched in-between the US trucks. “Where’s the rest of it”, or “go back to China” or “go eat your foreign car”, with much worse that can’t be said here and if one was broke down, oh boy, that added to the fodder on the CB radio. This will never catch on, we thought, and ate our words thusly.
Geos seemingly only bad experience aside, and I’m sure there were others, the ones that didn’t care what a bunch of beer swizzling, Harley riders had to say, they bought these, and had excellent results. Why, I too had one, my ex-BILs, a bit newer, the one he had trouble finding with 0 options, that truck had 230K miles when I got it, and all my BIL did was oil changes, brakes, tires nothing major,,and I put at least another 10K on it, but was pretty rusty by then, it’s only nemesis. My biggest gripe was it needed a 5 speed, resolved later.
This particular truck, oh, jeez, kill it already, I doubt there’s even a halfway decent one left that this could be used for parts. My experience with several folks that had them,, they were good trucks and surely bought another.