Cars are meant to be driven, but sometimes life, or the scent of a potential investment opportunity, gets in the way. It’s unclear why this 1991 Toyota Pickup has covered just 69,981 miles during its 35 years of existence, but it’s definitely a survivor. Whether that makes it worth the $69,900 asking price from Michigan dealership Vanguard Motor Sales is another question.
That’s nearly a dollar per mile driven, and a few grand more than a brand new Tacoma TRD Pro—not exactly a cheap truck.
This pickup is remarkably clean, though. It’s hard to find an example of these 1990s compact pickups that isn’t rusty, let alone as showroom fresh as this. The paint and chrome are shiny, and the interior appears stain- and tear-free, with plastics that aren’t warped or cracked. The truck even comes with its original owner’s manual, window sticker, and sales receipt, according to the dealership.
This is also an excellent example of the basic pickups we just don’t get in the United States anymore. It’s powered by a 22RE 2.2-liter inline-four connected to a five-speed manual transmission and four-wheel drive, albeit with an open rear differential (with 4.00 gears). The 15-inch aluminum wheels are tiny by modern standards, but they’re wrapped in 31-inch General Grabber all-terrain tires.
The bench seat has three sets of seatbelts, although the transmission and four-wheel drive shift levers could make things awkward with a middle-seat passenger onboard. That passenger also doesn’t get a shoulder belt, and the windows are hand-cranked. It was a simpler time.
The hype surrounding Slate’s electric pickup shows that many people are eager to recapture that simpler time, but in this case the price of nostalgia is just too high. Looking at Bring a Trailer, only two examples of this generation of Toyota Pickup (the last before Toyota launched the Tacoma nameplate) have crested $50,000 at auction. One had even less mileage than this truck. And while basic, old school pickups are definitely cool, going to such lengths to have the cleanest 1991 Toyota Pickup is, as the kids say, an odd flex.
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