Toyotas, Toyotas Everywhere!

Why I love them so much

Where it Began

When I was a teenager my dad and I started building a Toyota Pickup as my first vehicle. It was a 4x4 with a carbureted 4 cylinder, the ‘22r’. We had two or three parts trucks to pull from. Those trucks had lots of usable parts but were too rusted or damaged to be repaired. We bought metallic blue paint for when the bodywork was finished but sadly, before we could finish it I moved to Alberta. I never forgot that truck.

The truck that started it all

I always wanted to get another one, forever checking autotrader and listings online. They’re hard to find in Alberta and pickups in good shape are expensive! Even with a high price, I found that they were usually very beaten up and rusty. I never found the right one and drove other excellent vehicles in the meantime.

There it is - the 4Runner that re-started it all!

Moving to BC

The first time Curt brought me to BC we flew into the Abbotsford airport. We headed to the parking lot, where he’d left his vehicle. How we hadn’t talked about what he drove, I have no idea. It was a 1990 4Runner. It was rusty and slow, a typical old Toyota with their ‘slow and steady’ V6. As we headed off to explore his stomping grounds, I was thrilled.

A few years later I moved to B.C. full-time. I still had the car that we drove in Fort McMurray, and Curt had exchanged his slow old 4Runner for a much newer and faster blue Tacoma. His truck was awesome, but it wasn’t my truck.

Toyota Pride

As a company, Toyota employs a philosophy called KaiZen, or ‘continuous improvement’ in their production. A car manufacturer that uses philosophy to ensure that their vehicles are well made, and their employees are proud of what they do? Imagine that! It shows - and makes their products a bit superior to the rest in my opinion.

The overall design of their trucks has changed over the years, but not too much. When doing work on newer Tacomas you can still expect to find interior panels put together in a similar way. They don’t abandon good old technology unless they have a good reason to - I love that.

It was running SO BADLY, it didn’t even make it home and had to be towed.

Enter the Frankentruck

I was still always checking autotrader and listings online, finding trucks and showing them to Curt. He would tell me why that’s not the one. He’s a mechanic and had something like 8 Toyotas before we met so, though I’m stubbornly independent - I‘d be remiss to ignore his experience and advice.

The 1991 Pickup that we bought is a BEAST. I know my fair share about these trucks, but not much about modifications. Everything was far from original, it had a poorly installed lift, and a swapped-in diesel engine though it was born gas. It even had garden edging acting as fender flares. It was a challenge at every turn and an amazing learning experience for me.

What’s with the Name?

In the beginning I called it ‘the hickup’ for two reasons. It is a pickup, with the hilux engine so hybridizing the two names made sense. Also, it was a MESS and seemed like a massive mistake!

Shibby didn’t get her name until the hard work was done and things got exciting. The name came from the 90’s movie ‘Dude, where’s my car?’ When the main characters (played by Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott) got excited they’d yell;
‘Shibby!’

We’d taken apart and fixed literally EVERYTHING. You name it - we did it. When the engine fired up and ran for the first time things got very exciting.

Shibby Today

I keep a big spreadsheet of the parts we’ve put into this truck. There were only a few things we couldn’t do ourselves, like rebuilding the injectors. These we brought in to a professional shop. It still needs a few aesthetic things, including the interior carpet which will have to come from the ‘states. I’m so proud of what we’ve done and what I’ve learned along the way.

A Toyota with a Canadian-made house on the back - how could I say no?!

Shibby Makes Friends

Other Toyotas have made their way into my yard… I swear, I have NO idea how it happened! First, there was the motor home - the Slumber Queen. It could use a very small amount of aesthetic work but really it’s perfect, and serves as a guest house when friends come over.

Next came another truck the same generation as Shibby but it has the slow V6, the same as the 4Runner that reignited it all. Good thing there’s also a spare 22-re engine (very similar to the one in the truck Dad and I built) or maybe two, in the junk pile!

Pokemon level 1 on the right, and Shibby is a Pokemon level three

The Land of Misfit Toys

Okay.. there are a few more, still. There’s also a red 2-wheel drive, which will become a very fuel-efficient commuter vehicle, a really cool ‘first Gen’ without an engine, and my own reliable Tacoma like Curt’s! We’ll do each one justice when time permits or the needed parts show themselves.

It looks like a junkyard but I love it. To me, it’s a collection. Like Pokemon - gotta catch ‘em all! Large, rusty, Pokemon. With them comes a dream of building a workshop in which we can tinker with them through the winter and dreams of what they’ll become. If we can take Shibby from the sad state she was in to the epic machine that she is now, anything’s possible and I can hardly wait to see what happens!