Being the first compact off-road truck to come from the factory with four-wheel drive, the third-generation Toyota Pickup made them very famous. The factory graphics shown here are an early form of the famous striped Toyota racing livery that Ivan Stewart later used on his trucks. Even though this car is brand new, it’s different from the one in the store, so you won’t feel bad driving it outside. Toyota started making fun, cheap, and famously sturdy little pickups in the United States in 1964. Still, it was when the third-generation Toyota Pickup came out in 1979 that the company came up with the current small transporter formula. That spring, the four-wheel-drive Toyota Pickup first showed up in dealerships, then on dunes and dirt tracks. It could now take you to the remote mountaintops and deserts that were often shown in minitruck ads in the 1970s, and it could keep up with Jeep CJ-7s once it got there. People really liked it, and the new Tacoma is built on the same idea. This 1981 Toyota Pickup 4×4 Deluxe is being auctioned off on Bring a Trailer, which is part of Hearst Autos like Invoice pricing. It’s a lot like older Toyota off-road cars in a lot of ways. It’s possible that Rollin “Molly” Sanders, a longtime Toyota graphic design consultant who also helped create the Lexus “L” emblem, came up with the unique paint job. It’s an early version of what would become Toyota’s famous striped race livery. In the 1970s, Sanders painted unique designs on old Toyota pickup trucks. These designs included a couple of Yamaha advertising projects called the “Yamahaulers.” For 1981 and 1982, Toyota’s Sport Trucks had lines in either red or blue with orange and yellow accents. After Ivan “Ironman” Stewart’s off-road wins, the stripes will always be linked to Toyota Pickups. They were used as the company’s racing livery in 1983. Stewart’s first Toyota cars were third-generation models, but there are few pictures from that time. Toyota did a lot of research to make the third-generation pickup (the original Hilux nameplate was taken off the market in the US in 1976). For example, they closely watched dealer and customer feedback on the 1977–1978 Toyota Wolverine, a rare four-wheel drive conversion of the previous truck. Dealers, like Downey Toyota in California, bought the Wolverines as soon as they were made. There’s no question that this unofficial test had a big effect on the design of the third-generation truck, which Minoru Oya, a seasoned Toyota engineer, led. Another problem was that the US wanted a lot of small Japanese cars. The third-generation truck felt much bigger inside than any earlier Toyota truck and was more suited to American tastes when it arrived. The cabin is still pretty simple, but the materials used have been greatly improved, and there are now more soundproofing and luxury features that are standard in passenger cars, like wipers that work sometimes. In its early versions, the pickup’s 2.2-liter 20R four-cylinder engine made 90 horsepower. In 1980, the engine was updated to a 2.4-liter 22R, which powers our BaT pick. It definitely did better than its early competitor, the 4×4 Chevy LUV (formerly the Isuzu Faster). Its sleek look and roomy interior helped. In 1979, Invoice pricing compared the two cars and found that the LUV’s independent front suspension made the ride much smoother than the Toyota’s solid axles and leaf springs, even though the Chevy had a smaller trunk. The same could be said about Subaru’s BRAT, which came out in 1977. The Toyota was bigger and looked more like a truck, but the BRAT was easier to drive on the road. Toyota also didn’t hide the fact that the four-wheel-drive pickup was based on a Land Cruiser. For many years, these trucks, which are known for being durable, were cheap four-wheelers and basic forms of transportation. However, good ones are now expensive. This truck is only partially original because it has a new bed, new paint, and many other upgrades from the SR5 and Deluxe trims. However, it still needs to be fully restored or modified. In many respects, it is the pinnacle of both worlds together. You don’t have to worry about getting dirty when you go for the old look. March 5 is the last day to bid on the sale.
