Toyota Hi-Lux – Driven To Write

There Is Only One

A kind of magic?

Highlander headlamp. (c) pressroom.toyota

Considered a mandatory part of a ’70s boy’s upbringing, car spotting for many, held sway over football and girls – for a while. In those formative years anyone could discern that the yellow car 200 feet away was a Cortina. Only the eye of one more nuanced would know the car to be a GXL and therefore worthy of knowledgeable discourse. Replete with such incendiary information, one could hold court, fellow subjects agog, mythical status achieved. Those questioning the omnipotent would face swift, often brutal retribution – indignant children reduced to Continue reading “There Is Only One”

Mule Variations

Toyota boxes clever.

If as it seems, Toyota wears the production crown, at least it’s modest and fits snugly. Naturally, there’s the occasional slip, leaving the odd jaunty angle but on the whole their kingdom is based upon more prosaic, unpretentious values, listening to their customer’s needs.

Much of the decadent West (and Japan) demands vehicles adorned with creature comforts and stratified social markers that depending on nameplate can cause snob levels to rise or fall accordingly. Add in design, a language those interested can weave akin to a boxer’s feet. Today’s subject however contains almost none of these qualities. If the Transit van and its ilk are the trade’s workhorse, then Toyota’s Probox is its beast of burden.

Imaginatively named using the combination of the words, Professional and er, box, this most versatile of vehicles has been a Aichi mainstay for practically twenty years. Simple reliable transport, unadorned by trinkets or jewels – besides it’s not technically a car – one can Continue reading “Mule Variations”

Yeoman of the Guard

The Toyota Hilux: Never knowingly underestimated.

Should there exist the phenomenon of an average main battle tank, one is certainly looking at enormous metallic hulks weighing in excess of sixty tons costing millions of anyone’s currency to build. Naturally a secretive beast, tanks remain wieldy objects until disabled by either enemy action or breakdown when an infrastructure is necessary to facilitate their movements. However, if one is not financially replete or that infrastructure non-existent why not Continue reading “Yeoman of the Guard”

Born in the USA

The Euro-pick-up truck is unwell.

Broadly speaking, we have a good deal to thank our American neighbours for in automotive terms, notwithstanding of course, the fact that some influences have been better received than others. Nevertheless, the automobile evolved more rapidly, and improved in ways we could scarcely have imagined largely due to US market forces. For instance, the modern styling studio was very much an American innovation, and it’s probably fair to say that nobody did more to Continue reading “Born in the USA”

H.E.L.P. I’m A Toyota, Get Me Outta Here!

It’s the Toyota reality show, folks!

Having originated with the production of looms, the Toyota motor company have since made significant inroads into driving the world. While Germany may be the car’s father, its mother French, to say nothing of its American cousin who made it larger than life, we must look East for precision and calculation. And a nice slice of toast. Good: on with the show.

The H from the above title refers to Hilux, that simple derivation of High and Luxury which has gone on to be a worldwide success story. Now onto its 8th generation and upwards of seventeen million sold since its 1968 inception – beloved by farmer, builder, explorer, desert racer. More commonly today with the office worker.

Keen to Continue reading “H.E.L.P. I’m A Toyota, Get Me Outta Here!”