“Rapid Fire” First time owner!!

Hello TW! I’ve been coming here for a few months as I researched my first Toyota purchase ever, at the age of 62. I worked my way up from being a car washer in 1979 to managing a couple different auto dealerships over the 40 years + I was in the business and I have recently retired. I always owned and drove the products I sold, but never worked in a Toyota dealership, so it never made ‘sense’ to own one - but now……
I’ve always liked Toyotas, a friend had a new bronze colored ‘75 Corona SR5, then bought a new ‘79 SR5 pu, so I did spend a lot of formative years riding in them - almost bought a new ‘77 Celica GT liftback in metallic black, but ended up with a Trans Am and that was that.
So.
In May I sold a 2016 Silverado Crew I’d bought new, for crazy money, well over what I paid new, and purchased a new ‘21 3.0 Duramax GMC Elevation crew. When I received it it just wasn’t turning my crank. I have had a 2006 Colorado Crew 2x for about three years and found myself driving, and enjoying that far more than the new truck - so -after test driving several used and a couple new Tacoma DC’s, went back to my Dealer friend, traded the GMC back to the dealer - for seriously crazy money - and bought an inbound Super White SR5 DCSB 4X4. (The GMC dealership’s family also owns two Toyota franchises here in the PNW). The $ was right, and my friend promised if I didn’t like it, I could trade it in, how could I lose? I knew before it even arrived that it wasn’t going to be ‘it’, but I did get it September 1, drove it, and liked it - but didn’t love it. Mostly I didn’t like the Cement interior, but there were features I wanted that the SR5 didn’t have, and doing the math on adding what I could add, didn’t really make sense. I did some online inventory searching, most of which were inbound, and found exactly what I wanted - but when I called the dealer the sales gal told me the price was 6k over MSRP. I said no thank you please.
So.
I asked my friend to see if they could find a new DCSB OR Premium pkg with technology and LED pkg, Manual trans. I like to row. They found an inbound exactly as I wanted, traded for it, and it came in last week and I picked it up today. Coincidentally? It’s actually the same truck I had called the other dealership about! I’m super stoked. I’d purchased a few accessories for the SR5 - LED bed lights, etc, and took them all off today, put ‘em on the OR. I love the size, power, and being 62 but pretty active, it checks all the boxes for me. So that’s my story. I’ll keep hanging out, likely lurking as much or more than I post but looking forward to enjoying my Taco, every day of the week. Here’s a couple pics of my transition from full size, to right size.

 

Welcome to TacomaWorld

 

Thank you!!

 

Welcome to TW!

 

Thank you Dennis!

 

Welcome!

 

Welcome!!!