Shortly after I shot the big-wheeled wide-track military truck (previous post), I saw this in traffic. What caught my eye is the single skinny little wheel and tire under this extended-wheelbase Toyota flatbed. These can haul a pretty good load; it’s the same chassis as was popular at one time under a number of Class C motorhomes. Actually, Toyota pulled the plug on that chassis because the rear axle was being overloaded by the owners of those motorhomes, and there were more than a few failures. Toyota can’t have that. Anyway, this one seems have reverted to singlies, and mighty modest ones. It’s a refreshing contrast to all the poseur jacked-up pickups around, but I’m hoping it doesn’t haul very heavy loads.
(Update: looking at those wheels, it’s obvious that they’re five-luggers, and not the heavy-duty wheels that came on the factory HD long-wheelbase chassis. So this likely a lengthened pickup, but it could well have been the one-tonner, which did use wheels like that.)
I also recall this chassis as the basis for a series of U-Haul box trucks. A friend rented one to clean out his mother’s house after she died. I took a couple of rides to the dump with him, and recall how odd for a column shifted automatic in a Toyota, even a truck. I always wondered if that was done on U-Haul specification, or if all of them with the auto got the column shifter.
There is a motorhome mounted on one of these trucks a mile or so away from me, that is in very nice condition and still seems to be in active service for its owners.
Agreed re: the column auto on the U-Haul trucks. I’ve driven a lot of Toyota Pickups from that generation, and the only autos I ever saw were in the U-Hauls. Makes sense—most of the people behind the wheel of a U-Haul have no business being there in the first place, much less clutching with an undoubtedly way-too-heavy load in the back.
Then again, I drove a huge old U-Haul straight truck around 2003…If I recall correctly, it was a GMC medium duty chassis with a gnarly old four-speed. I was shocked that it was still in the fleet, because it was 70s vintage at the very latest.
Note my update: this is quite obviously not a factory HD chassis with just single wheels, but a stretched pickup indeed. I should have looked closer.
Frightening in its own way, although I saw a 2nd generation 4×2 S10 long bed in traffic a few days ago with so many add-a-leaves on the rear leaf springs that the rear was a full foot higher than the front. Talk about headlight aiming issues for the loaded vs unloaded demands on that truck!
Never mind headlight aiming, how about steering geometry? You would be getting into shopping trolley levels of castor
Well the gentleman driving did seem to be “taking his time” 😛
A genuine workaholic. No pretense at all.
Hmmm…I’ve got a load of postholes I need to get out of here….
I like the trailer hitch in the back. This dude is ambitious with a capital A!
Gotta figure that bed came off something much, much larger. I’d venture to guess that just the bed itself is very close to exceeding the intended load limit on that Pickup. Extra points for the huge trailer mirrors, though!
It’s an old truck and he probably doesn’t care what happens to it at this point.
Most likely used to hall light materials…insulation; or leaves in bags; or lawn-care equipment. The trailer ball may be to move a cement mixer (small one) or just to launch a boat or move things around the yard.
It’s not uncommon to have a truck of dubious capacity with a bed all outsized…for fluffy loads. For example, I cut my truckdriving teeth on a Chevy C60 dump. Little truck, huh? Not this thing…had an ENORMOUS dump box. About half-again the size of the typical box on a Chevy medium.
Wassup wif DAT? Simple. That truck was used to haul leaves in the fall; garbage in the spring (the town roads would get too soft to run the packer through town) and grass clippings in the summer. Winter, it got a scoop of gravel in the back and a set of chains; and became a snowplow.
Probably same principle here.
I did a double take–a friend of mine has a similar truck and I was looking for his ranch label on the side. I’m not sure what his truck started life as (he’s out of the country and the truck is lent out), but he talked with Toyota and his bed and load ideas were within Toy’s specs. He uses the truck to haul his John Deere A around to a couple of shows. The Toy doesn’t seem to mind so long as the trip is level.
His might have duals, though.
We had Toyota 1/2 ton trucks in the early 90’s in the rental fleet where I worked. They were all column mounted shifters. They always seemed much longer than needed.