Tacoma Swept Away, Stripped, Recovered

Okay, that’s bad...

 

that actually made me laugh out loud!!!

 

You would be surprised.

When I was a college freshman we would frequent this little village that was just opposite Big Bend Ntnl Park, I think the name was Boquillas. At the time (pre 9-11 days) this village was tiny, maybe 30 people, and four businesses. There was a corral for tourists to rent burros, one dollar per ride, the corral also conveniently had a rowboat to get you across the river, also one dollar per ride. There was a gift shop that sold peppers made of paper mache and little scorpions made out of bent wire, and across from that there was a pharmacy that sold whatever you wanted no prescription needed. Behind the pharmacy you could get things like ditch weed and peyote. And then there was what 19 year old rock lobster was really interested in, the cafe. A dollar bought you a burrito of questionable meat and your choice of Corona or Negro Modelo. Or you could skip the questionable and get five beers for two dollars. A screaming deal, and we didn't even need to play the fake ID game.

Anyways, the point of all that was the village square. Boquillas really didn't have roads, just worn places in the dirt. But by golly they had a village square, with a concrete pedestal monument and all. And mounted up high on that pedestal was a rusted, half spray painted transmission out of a 50's Ford. I never got the reason why. Anyways, on one of our visits we noticed the town monument was missing. We asked about it, and were told that the guy that does the supply runs to the big city needed to make repairs to his truck, so he took it.

Years later, after renting many old vw's and Chevy's along the Yucatan that were pretty much held together with spare parts and resin, I still think about that town transmission. Those folks have advanced degrees in making do with what they find. A car left overnight on a Mexican beach is fair game, it's totally plausible that it got stripped that quickly, and if not kludged onto their own vehicles, it got repurposed elsewhere. Those seats are probably in someone's living room now.

 

I look forward to seeing this Tacoma on the Phoenix craigslist in a few weeks.
“Low mileage Pro for sale. Salvage title from one tiny incident, in great condition. My loss is your gain”

 

by chance was it "in the summer '69"