Super cool Japanese-import Toyota Hilux Surf for sale - Autoweek

<Reviewp>This 1988 Toyota Hilux Surf SSR Limited checks all the car geek's insufferable minutiae -- and then it keeps going with it. It's a limited edition. It has low miles. It has a five-speed manual. It is a diesel. It has all the transfer cases you could ever want. It is four-wheel drive. It is right-hand drive. Its rear window folds down. Its fiberglass comes off with ease, thereby transforming it into a safari vehicle for less-than-reputable " wildlife parks." It has that cool inclinometer in the center that reminds us of bouncing around in our uncle's 1995 Mitsubishi Montero.

Most brain-warpingly shocking of all, it is a 1980s Toyota whose frame doesn't yet look like the wreckage of the Titanic.

Ah, it was a simpler time -- back when an SUV was just a pickup with some fiberglass bits nailed to the back, a time when rear seats weren't there for comfort and convenience so much as they were there for insurance purposes. (Many luxury 2+2s still adhere to this principle.) We would say this is the ultimate survival rig to flee from those clichéd zombies, or to enable the writing and distribution of anti-technology manifestos, if it wasn't so achingly rare. And in accordance with its rarity, no price has been listed. (We've left a message posing as interested buyers, which is as close to those local news "hidden camera investigations" as we'll get.)

Just think -- in an alternate universe, it's these 80s JDM nostalgia trucks that are bringing big bucks at all the collector car auctions: Rust-free, numbers-matching, one-of-one, extensively optioned Hilux Surfs and SR5 4x4s ballooning in value! Did you see? Last week, an unrestored 4Runner was pulled out of a barn in Yakima -- no floorboard rust! Barn find! Sold for six figures! Some guy's Marty McFly replica went for $90,000! That's insane. Hey, come back to my place, they're televising the Mecum sale -- yeah, that's right, there's an Isuzu Raider headlining the thing. Big bucks. I'll pick you up in my 426 'Cuda. You know, the numbers-matching one. Yeah, I still have it. For the life of me, nobody wants to buy the damn thing.

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