▲ 118 points
back
128 comments
> It is also a very robust vehicle capable of withstanding elemental and physical extremities, as shown on the British TV show “Top Gear.”[6]
If you haven't ever watched Top Gear, this is definitely one of the standout bits they did - putting that truck through absolute hell, and watching it continue to start up.
I highly recommend it, even if you don't think of yourself as a Car Guy. It's basically a comedy show that just happens to use cars.
For folks who have never seen it, these are the referenced Top Gear segments:
- part 1: https://youtu.be/xnWKz7Cthkk
- part 2: https://youtu.be/xnWKz7Cthkk
- part 3: https://youtu.be/kFnVZXQD5_k
I don’t doubt how tough the Hilux can be, but Top Gear tended to stage a lot of things. Like they intentionally killed Hammond’s Land Cruiser at the end of the Bolivia special. Plus, they had some pretty damn good mechanics, while Clarkson pretended to fix his cars with a hammer in front of the camera.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear%3A_Polar_Special Top Gear drives a heavily modified Toyota Hilux to the North Pole.
While I don't think it would prevent our troops from having foreign-produced trucks in theater, we can't affordably procure such trucks thanks to the Chicken Tax. I would also guess that giving a DoD contract to Toyota for a truck that may not be registrable in the US would also face institutional resistance.
The military has an incentive to ensure there are plenty of Americans who know how to design and manufacture things. A truck and a tank have a lot in common - if war breaks out we want the ability to take people of of trucks and get them making things the military needs.
This is the same reason the Navy has for building ships in the US even though they can be done other places cheaper.
Also, because of CAFE standards, the US can't even attempt to create its own competing light trucks as everything needs to be fucking massive to maintain the emission exemptions.
The thinking was it would make cars more efficient but instead everyone just built obscenely large vehicles that were classified as trucks instead of passenger vehicles.
Toyota has factories in the US where they produce pickups. They could build the Hilux here if they thought it would do well in the market.
25% tariff isn't a roadblock for military spending.
I wish it was easy and simple to buy the Hilux in America. Many amazing foreign vehicles have been banned or heavily taxed by the Federal Government to prevent competition.
Imagine how much nicer driving around in the suburbs would be if the majority of vehicles were town cars like Honda Fits, mini-mini-vans like Honda Freed, pre-2003 Tacomas, and kei trucks/vans instead of the usual mix of unreasonably tall and boxy crossovers/SUVs and brodozer trucks.
The current Hilux really isn't much different than a Tacoma to call it "amazing"
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Upacara_...
The old Hilux that was on Top Gear hasn't been made for a quarter century.
Even vehicles that are largely the same as those we get here are banned from being brought in. All because Mercedes didn't like being undercut by gray market imports and lobbied the government.
America will become like East Germany and the Trabant.
And thanks to Trump's antics Detroit is losing the Mexican and Canadian markets...
The Hilux isn't "banned" from the USA. Toyota can federalize it and sell it here at any time. Toyota doesn't bring it here because we have the Tacoma - a truck designed to be more inline with American consumer tastes.
If Toyota wanted to, they could readily start manufacturing Hiluxes in Mexico and importing them into the USA. Presumably, the reason they don't do this is because Americans hate small pickup trucks. Every single truck on sale in the USDM sells better in larger footprint spec.
There's maybe 20k American who are willing to buy a new truck with the wheelbase the size of a Mustang (smallest Hilux). Even small BoF SUVs have the same problem. Take the FJ Cruiser, despite being a cult classic, it sold terribly in the USA, likely due to being too small.
Plus, they are expensive. In Australia, the cheapest non-work-spec Hilux trim is ~$55k - which is like $38kUSD. A Tacoma starts cheaper than that and is much larger.
Toyota must not think it is that amazing, else they would use their pickup factory in Texas to make Hilux's to sell here.
I loved my 1987 Toyota 4x4 pickup with all its mods. My wife used to say that I'd get rid of her before I got rid of it (wife's still here; I sold the truck long ago).
But no way in hell would I want to be a real accident in one. That's why they're no longer sold in the US. Amazing off-roader, cheap and extremely reliable.
But they're stuck in 1980's crash survivability while the rest of the world moved on.
They're selling side by sides today in the <3500 dry wt. category which can be road registered. If used primarily for agriculture, they're even tax exempt from registration in some states. The 80's toyota pickup is better than a side by side and weighs less than 3500, arguably safer, and offers better utility for agriculture. There are plenty of Toyota manufacturing facilities in the US, which would avoid the chicken tax on import. It's not impossible or unreasonable for light weight toyota turbo diesels with hydraulic systems, an aluminum frame, and manual locking hubs to materialize.
Seems like the question is never answered. There's a lot of how the trucks get there, but not why they're better. (I skimmed it, the writing has too much emotional bait of "Look how evil they are! Don't forget, we're the good guys!").
Maybe it's survivor bias, the ones that are crap have been blown up by a Hellfire shot by a drone..
It’s the same story as the Casio F-91W as well as the AK-47. Terrorists (or just any armed paramilitary group) who live in the back country far from common supply lines have a great need for standardized, rugged, reliable, and repairable technology. By living that life, they’re basically forced to think about these issues as a matter of survival.
I can tell you precisely why foreign Toyotas (especially certain models) are more reliable that whats typically sold in the US. No electronics and parts which operate based on physics (pressure, gravity, etc). Both of these decisions lend themselves to a simple engine compartment and repairability.
In the US, you can buy a five-speed 4runner which is about the simplest engine available on the market. Has all the benefits enumerated above and its trivially repairable by DIYers. However, even the 4runner has annoying garbage which can fail.
Compare the newest 70 series Land Crusier in Japan to the US Land Cruiser (Prado). Difference is a v8 with no electronics and a 4 cylinder hybrid filled with electronics and a rats nest of tubes running across the top of the engine. Try working on that... Of course its get +20mpg compared to the Japanese version. I'm pretty sure the 70 series is 4 wheel drive always whereas the prado runs in 2 wheel drive but has a 4 wheel switch (more complexity -- better gas mileage).
Anyway, intangibles such as availability of parts and lower pricing makes scavenging more economical and increases life span.
Also, stability of the platform means there's lots of expertise that has developed over the past +30 years. Same design, same repairs, same parts. Makes things easy.
- Cheap + reliable
- Parts for maintenance easy to come by
- Strong enough to mount an 50 cal in the back
> the writing has too much emotional bait of "Look how evil they are! Don't forget, we're the good guys!"
I mean, that blog seems to be an official Air Force publication. I don't find it very surprising that an army blog (of any nation's military) would stick to that nation's official narrative and not veer into larger geopolitical questions.
Maybe stop US should stop funding ISIS, Al Queda in Syria, mujahideen in Afghanistan…
Don't be silly. Can't have stability in Israel's adversaries
Stories like this always seem one-sided.
Can't a journalist or researcher find at least one person on the other side from back when this was done in ~2012 and interview them?
Sure, many will be reluctant to talk, and Afghanistan isn't exactly a stable place right now, but all it would take is a phone call to the right people...
>Stories like this always seem one-sided.
Nuanced "it's complicated" takes don't gain traction.
Confirm the audience's biases and it's straight to the top.
Why do websites constantly insist on having small gray on white background text, stretching 160+ characters per line? Practically impossible to read on desktop. I wish people would think about default readability. Even Microsoft Edge’s reading mode barely made a difference.
They sometimes get American trucks, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Mark-1_Plumbing_truck_inc...
One of the books that influenced my thinking the most was The Accidental Guerilla by David Kilcullen where he posits that economic disadvantage drove a lot of people to insurgency. This article supports that. Worth a read!
Yes, humans do compete for resources.
> ISIS may have acquired Toyota Hilux vehicles thanks to the perpetual cycle of U.S. involvement in Foreign Military Sales with the Middle East
No surprises there. A lot of ISIS' actual weaponry was stuff the US had equipped the crony Iraqi military with, and was just picked up by ISIS when the Iraqi soldiers retreated - like a weapons cache in a computer game: Move over the building and your ammo slider goes up magically.
What’s better than Hilux is the Land Cruiser 70 or 75 series, more reliable and bigger payload. That being said, you can never go wrong with Toyota, reliable yet simple, if you open the Hilux engine hood you can literally see your feet through the engine area because only few components are in there, compare this to say a german car, and you need a manual on just where to find the engine oil stick.
Because ISIS was a rebranded Al Quaeda which emerged from the Mujahideen terrorist group which was funded by the US through Operation Cyclone headed by the Polish Jesuit Zbigniew Brzezinski. They've always had funding from the Jesuits / US war industry. It's no surprise they have access to these vehicles if one understands that all modern wars are orchestrated.
Not just modern wars. Hell the American Revolution was funded and supplied by France and the Netherlands- the colonies at that time did not have the industrial capability to outfit an army.
Every conflict in the history of man has people operating in the shadows.
Glad to see my alma mater represented here doing good research.
I served in Iraq as an AF commander. My 2001 Tundra is still going strong ;)
So is mine (2001TRD bought new). Searched all over AZ looking for manual everything and I got it, except for the trans. It replaced an fj60 Landcruiser. Beautiful machine I worked on a lot (5spd trans, lift, exhaust, gas tank) but it needed more power. The FJ-60 replaced an absolutely bottom basic 4cyl 4wd 5spd manual Toy "Pickup", better than a jeep 'cause you could carry shit off road, that the child outgrew sitting in the middle behind the stick.
The only thing I dislike about the Tundra is the gas mileage. I thought I would hate the auto trans but then I did some largish sandy-ish steps uphill and fuck me that was easy. Ah, there is another annoying thing: anti-lock brakes make sandy steep downhills with exposure much more interesting than they should be.
When I die I want to be buried in it.
God the new gigantic Tundras look awful. I think I'm seeing a lot more newish Tacomas these days, and they still look decent. They definitely look easier to park.
Reminds me of a back burner project I have. "The Technical In War".
Because the chicken tax keeps out great vehicles so the US automakers don’t have to compete.
The hilux and 79 landcruiser are run of the mill workhorses in virtually every country in the world except the US and Canada. They run rings around the Tacoma and tundra.
Tariffs and old world protectionism like the chicken tax are keeping the US automakers on life support, but they’re all doomed - they’re not even trying to compete.
Much preferable to call them insurgents. Your perspective is USA centric and derogatory.
Big reveal: they're not but bringing out a feeling of superiority in your enemy inside a warzone makes them easier targets
Why not deal with the cause of the terrorism?
Are we really worried what vendor they get their trucks from?