Toyota Stalking, er...um, SPOTTING with Charlie™ (Cars, vans, SUVs, Lexus, Scion, and brochures)!

2001 Lexus RX300


August 30th, 2022:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

2005 Scion TC


August 30th, 2022:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

1997 Lexus ES300


August 30th, 2022:

Doylestown, Pennsylvania

 

Same car!


September 3rd, 2022:

Boyertown, Pennsylvania

 

2003 Avalon XLS


September 3rd, 2022:

Boyertown, Pennsylvania

 

2010 Scion XB


September 3rd, 2022:

Boyertown, Pennsylvania

 

I posted that in the wrong thread...



@ColoradoTJ

2002 Lexus IS300 SportCross; I saw these often enough over a decade ago when they were fairly new, but this is my first time seeing one since I started "stalking" vehicles to post pictures on TW and the related forums. As such, I was really excited when I saw it! The owner bought it in Florida for like $1,500 and drove it up to Pennsylvania. The car has about 200K miles!


September 3rd, 2022:

Boyertown, Pennsylvania

 

2006 Highlander Hybrid Limited


September 4th, 2022:

Bristol, Pennsylvania

 

@ABA180
@BkerChuck
@ColoradoTJ
@Plain Jane Taco
@shakerhood
@Squatting Pigeon
@Taco critter
@TnShooter
@wilcam47

This is another vehicle image on the Happy Color app; I thought it looked like a Toyota Coaster minibus, so I simply Googled "Shark Bus". It turns out that there is in fact a 2005 Toyota Coaster "Shark Bus" in New Zealand!

 

As July 2020, it was for sale...

https://thedailyjaws.com/news/kelly-tarltons-shark-bus-for-sale

 

Apparently it sold for $31,500 after a lot of aggressive bidding...

 

It now legal to bring a 1997 or older Coaster into the United States under the 25-year loophole; I have NEVER seen one in the USA, and I am unaware of any in Canada. The reason for this is because while they are relatively cheap to buy and likely no harder to get into the country than a Delica or HiAce, but lots of money doesn't always mean lots of garage space, and most people don't have the ability to keep a vehicle that's big as a typical class A motorhome on their property. The majority of Coasters seem to be used as public transport for big cities in Asia and Europe, and as transport for recreational facilities in those areas of the world. The last time I checked the Hertz website, it was possible to rent a Coaster with a manual transmission in Australia for private use. However, both the automatic and manual models required commercial license, so not just anybody could actually rent one.

In the US, once a retired school bus under 26,000 pounds has been repurposed as a motorhome, work truck, or other private vehicle, a CDL is not required to drive it. I'm pretty sure that a Coaster is well under 26,000 pounds and does not have air brakes, so it's probably possible to drive one in America with a regular Class C license.

The pictures below were all taken from Wikipedia...

 

@shakerhood
@Taco critter

These are 1st Generation Coasters from the 1970s...

 

The one in first, higher resolution picture is LHD and would be a prime candidate for a motorhome conversion!

 

This is a 2nd Generation 1980s model; 1st Generation models produced prior to February 1972 had a 4-speed manual transmission, with newer models getting a 5-speed. Both the 4-speed and 5-speed variants were column-shifted!

I can't find any info to corroborate this, but I would think that an automatic transmission was an option by the 1980s...

 

This is also a 1980s B30 model...

 

The 3rd Gen B40/B50 was produced from 1993 until 2016, which is an impressive production run! The 3rd Gen was in fact available with an automatic transmission. The 3rd Gen received facelifts in 2001 and 2007, and we see one below with the 2001 facelift...

 

This is a 4th Generation B60/B70 model. This generation was introduced in December 2017 and is still technically in production, but production has apparently been suspended since February 2022 due to "model switching"...

This is a then-new 2017 model, photographed in October 2017...

 

Dashboard of a current generation model, and it wouldn't look out of place in Land Cruiser in my opinion...

 

Another 2017 model...