Armored Toyotas

I work on cargo ships. RORO (roll on-roll off) ships are basically floating 12 story parking garages capable of holding 4500+ normal sized automobiles.
We had a load a few years ago of a few dozen armored Toyotas. I believe they were loaded somewhere in the Mid East and were destined for the US, probably to be refit/refurbished by an armor outfitter.
The trucks were a mix of Tacoma, Hilux, LC 70's, and LC 200's. The only gas engines of the bunch were the Tacoma 4.0l, the rest were diesel. The bodies were beefed up in various ways, from bone stock exterior to full on guards and turrets in beds. The suspension on every truck was beefed up tremendously to deal with the weight of armor and extras. The ride height remained mostly stock looking for most, probably as to blend in and not look unusual. The armoring of the trucks was an entire interior shell of plate steel. Imagine removing the entire interior and lining every inch of interior body shell with engineered drop in plate steel inserts, including doors, ceilings, floors, etc, bulletproof glass throughout, then normal interior laid on top of armor. The LC200's open the trunk hatch revealed what looked like an armored vault door behind the normal hatch. The shipping label on the side of the Tacoma stated 9,000lbs unit weight! Some vehicles were unmolested, others had bullet marks. It was very cool to see these things up close and poke around.

 

I want one… or two.

 

Great Post

 

very cool... thanks for sharing!

 

Interesting. Looks like they're using stock tie rods, & maybe stock steering rack too. Wonder if that was a weak point. Maybe not a problem as a 9,000 lb Taco is probably going pretty slow on average compared to stock weight.

 

Thats pretty cool

 

Cool post. Thanks for sharing. Tire of choice look like KO'2?

 

That's what I noticed too. Are those made in a bullet-resistant variant?

 

neat
shows how tough these trucks are

so theyre outfitted or modified in the US? then sent back to battlegrounds...i assume they are for ally
contracts but who knows after the initial transactions??

the only one in middle east is Israel though for a true ally...hmm wonder if people making money on tools
used to hurt us

not trying to open pandora box, can remove if so

 

This truck was from a different shipment going from USA to overseas. Brand new armored LC70 series with inline 6 diesels. Must have been imported to USA only for outfitting and then exported.

 

I saw a a video posted on one of the truck sites about those trucks, there's a large importer (company) here in the US that preps most of not all the UN, various Relief organizations and a host of other customers with ruggedized toyotas that get shipped all over the world, ironically none are US spec and many were diesels.

 

Its interesting to see SPC hydrobumps on most of these. Did they have anything happening in the rear?

 

This looks like a @TOTAL CHAOS LCA. I wonder if they can confirm

 

Hmmmmmmmm Cannot confirm or deny........

 

But if I could, I'd say they are by no means slow are are by no means driven with care. Shockingly impressive.......

 

SPCs are being phased out.

 

Yes load range E with tire balls and 2 piece Hutchins wheels

 

I often use these vehicles as an example of how strong the factory steering knuckles with gussets actually are.