The roommate and I pulled up to our mechanic’s shop a month ago and I couldn’t quite believe what was in the driveway. My Toyota knowledge and enthusiasm is well documented, but the car I saw took me entirely by surprise. I wondered around it, jaw ever slackening, admiring the details.
I’ve owned a Tercel wagon and always notice them out and about but this was a first. I recognized parts of the frame and drivetrain, but wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing.
The owner saw me wandering around and taking pictures and came out to let me in on the rig. I forget the exact year but they match, the body being obviously a Tercel wagon, and the rest of it being a Four Runner. Brilliant!
It all made sense once I noticed the placement of the spare. I had to use mine several time traipsing around the Cascade and Coastal Range logging roads in my Faux Runner. The custom running boards are a nice touch, as is the consistent use of spent bullet casings in the decor.
I don’t recall the exact story of why this rig came about, but it is a fully functional four-wheel drive rig, with a paint job to match.
A bed-liner finish is a rather appropriate touch for this rig. I’ve seen a few other examples of this finish and it is an impressive sight. Wade sprayed a mid-80’s Jimmy and it looked fantastic. I’m going to have to get one of my Toyotas done like this some day.
This put a big goofy smile on my face 🙂 Love it
The OUTSIDE was sprayed with bedliner?!?!? Brilliant!!! Pretty cool rig.
Nice work; I’m surprised the wheelbases match. Would have figured the Tercel’s to be shorter.
What is that lower grille from? I can’t quite place it.
One minor point that may have factored in here was that the wagon had a 2-inch longer wheelbase than other Tercels and was almost 10 inches longer overall. (In Japan, the wagon was marketed as the Sprinter Carib, which was sold through a different dealer network than the Tercel; Sprinters were sold through Toyota Auto stores, the Tercel through the Vista network.)
Ca-ri-bu! With Yon-Daburu-Dii (not shi-daburu-dii).
Looks pretty cool. The axles are a little wide for the body, even with the narrow tires. A roof rack and top mounted spare, along with tubular bumpers would help complete the look. Years ago, there was a 67 Cougar convertible complete with roll bar mounted on a Bronco chassis. The build was well done, but the young owner thrashed it to hell in a couple of years. Waste of a nice now rare classic.
Imagine if Doug and Carrie Heffernan of the King of Queens drove this version instead of the regular Toyota Tercel Wagon during the first few years of that show?
If Breaking Bad ever returns… Y0, BITCH!
This thing is wild and lustworthy.
Not too far down the road I intend to use bedliner on the outside of my 4Runner. I think I will use Monstaliner (sp?). Add a .com to that for their website and to see the variety of colors. The thing that sold me is that you need not use nearly so much rubber as with most bedliners. A hard finish with some wrinkle. All with a roller or brush.
I am rapidly becoming a Toyota fan. Buying one made me financially broke for the short term but I’ll get past that.
Jesse Pinkman’s car on steroids!
Toyota Caribean by the look of it interesting mash up antichip sprayed on the upper side is cool the grill appears to be from a Starlet Carat I could be wrong on that as its upside down to normal mounting somebody with lots of junk and imagination.
’67 Cougar convertible??…never was such a beast. It had to be a Cougar from 69 through 73. or it was a sawzall job.
I remember a Valiant coupe hacked to a convertable mounted on a Hilux 4×4 chassis in Sydney looked quite good till you got close.
Must have been a sawzall. So well done it didn’t look hacked, come to think of it I don’t remember seeing a folded down top assembly. It was for sure 67-68 body style. It was over 30 years ago.
I’ve been looking at doing the exterior of my old CRV in bedliner material, along with black wheels and spacers so they sit out appropriately. The problem is bedliner is actually quite expensive to spray. The brush on is cheaper but its still a $600-800 paint job which is a bit much for a beater that might look like crap afterwards too.
You can use water based underbody treatment its like $29 per litre cartridge I just did the wheel arches on my Minx.
Very cool. I think tube bumpers and a couple of spares on the roof would complete the picture very nicely.
In 1985 my govt employer bought a Tercel (Carib 4WD) and i promptly got it stuck in deep sand…it did eventually make it’s way back to the road before the tide got it, but i was NOT impresssed with it’s off road abilities…it was a reasonably nice small wagon though otherwise..
the gearbox arrangement provided for an ‘EL’ extra low ratio first gear. On full lock turns the front CV’s tended to ‘lock-up’ solid leaving you stranded halfway through the turn (hair-raising on a country highway). The trick was to reverse back out of it with screeching rubber and so on ..bloody hell ..those engineers had not thought that one out very well
…on the later early 90’s Lucida/Estima 4WD range the problem was sorted ..these fulltimers have GREAT tight locks and NO DRAMAS doing highway 180 turns.. good vehicles provided you don’t push them to hard (overheating issues) and provided you don’t roll them by aggressive turning at speed when the front suspension will ‘kneel and tuck under’ effectively flipping the vehicle