If the new Tundra is a little too much truck for you, perhaps you’d prefer a throwback to a simpler time, one with more modest grille sizes. And possibly the perfect throwback is up for auction in New Hampshire this week: a nearly-new 1993 Toyota Truck. While some Toyota trucks have endured a million miles, this one falls in the polar opposite camp. It has only 84 miles on the odometer.
Hailing from the pre-Tacoma days, the official Toyota model name was the very creative “Truck”. This particular example is described as a barn find by the seller, purchased new in Gorham, N.H., driven home, and immediately mothballed for 28 years. That’s all the detail we can get, since, we only have information from the second and current owner — who’s flipping it after one year — to go on, not the original owner. It would be fascinating to find out from the original buyer about why the truck was never driven.
The short-wheelbase, 4-cylinder Deluxe trim truck doesn’t appear to have been purchased for collectibility, as it’s fairly ho-hum when it comes to options. As indestructible as the Toyota 22RE is, if we were standing in a Toyota showroom in 1993 looking at a truck for investment purposes, we’d have ticked the boxes for a long-wheelbase Xtracab with a 3.0-liter V6. We do agree, however, with the 4WD and 5-speed manual options.
Despite its low mileage, it’s not cherry. Nearly 30 years of damp New England winters and humid summers have put a patina of surface rust on many of the underbody components. There are three dents along the left side from something that fell against the bed during storage. The spare tire went missing sometime along the way as well. The battery, fuel tank, fuel pump and pickup assembly were wisely replaced before starting the engine as to not gum up the system with varnished gasoline.
Beyond that, it’s hard to find fault with the truck. The seller says the engine runs as you’d expect, and we would expect the 22RE to be pretty flawless with a simple fluid change, even after decades of inactivity. The pickup’s 6J7 Forest Green Metallic paint still dazzles, even in the bed, and the cloth interior has remained impeccable.
Classic Toyota trucks have been skyrocketing in value alongside their Land Cruiser and 4Runner brethren. Even T100 and first-gen Tundra pickups hold their value to an insane degree. Examples clocking mileage that would signal end-of-life hooptie-ism for most cars — we’re talking well over 200,000 miles — sell for around the price of a well-kept similar-era Cadillac with a quarter of the odometer reading.
As of this writing, the 35 bids have propelled the price to $40,100, or about the price of a brand new 2021 Tundra Limited. With about a day left to go, it’ll be interesting to see how much this once humble work truck ends up going for.
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