Before they called them Tacoma‘s …

I happen to come across an old picture of my first Toyota pick up truck. It was actually my first new car purchase. I was in 1988. Beautiful truck black with wagon wheels and a roll bar on top of the roll bar. Had to get out to lock the front hubs for four-wheel-drive with a thing would go anywhere. I probably would still have the truck if the bed didn’t completely rot away. I end up getting rid of it with 177,000 miles on it but it ran about as good as the day I drove it off the lot. The problem was if you walked past it certainly the bed, it was like walking past a wall of exposed razor blades!

Anyway, long story short I think it was just called an SR or an SR5 back in that day. When did they start calling these trucks Tacomas? When I got my next one it was a 2000 and that was an actual Tacoma. So it had to be sometime between 1988 and 2000.
Thanks.

 

Mid 1995

 

I believe it was 1995 that they officially introduced the Toyota pickup as the Tacoma. Previously it was the "Toyota pickup" in north america and the "Hilux" over seas.

 

T100?

T pup?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Tacoma



Also, the Tundra was previously called the T-100. My father owned the first model year it came out. He sold it last year, with 390k miles on it.

 

Reminds me of my coworkers beautiful old toyota

 

Here is my first, it was 1992 pickup sr5 with a 3vze engine (new engine at 186k) and a manual. Great truck. I was going to school for autobody and repainted the whole thing, I wanted to do flames on it so I mixed up a bunch of pearl powders... I added red pearl and it turned it pink, but in the sun it had blue, green and white pearl in the pink.

 

Never got the reason why Toyota decided to name their truck after so many years. Probably had to do with marketing, I recall when Tacoma was introduced, and was like why give the truck a name?

Would have been nice if Toyota kept the manual locking hubs, and manual transfer case for the Tacoma.

 

Bought mine in 1993 put 199,999 miles on it - damn thing is still running in the vicinity of Lawrence Kansas.
Bullet Proof it was. Manual Transmission. Since I bought it in Northern CA there was no need, and no A/C installed.

 

I bought a 1985 Toyota 4x4 brand new, cost about 9500.00 and I used to sweat making the 120.00 payment. I beat the shit out of that thing for 10 years and 285,000 miles and it never let me down

 

LOL right... my 1993 payment was $163.00 a month..paid $6,400 for it on the lot with 6 miles on it... some new
model was on the lot called a TACOMA but I didn't like it at the time... bought the last 1993 pickup truck they had.

 

You hit the nail on the head; marketing. After they introduced the T100 to the US market for 1993, it was too confusing anymore to just say Toyota pickup or truck (because there were two different trucks now, the Pickup/Hilux and the T100!). They needed to differentiate between the Hilux and T100. So when the Hilux was sunset in '94 and its replacement was brought in for model year '95, it got named Tacoma.


I miss my '93 pickup. It was standard cab, 2WD, 22RE, 5spd. From the factory it had A/C but no radio, no rear bumper, no power windows or locks. Cloth bench seat! Nothing special except the color, blue pearl metallic. I added Centerline wheels, a bedliner and an Alpine cassette radio & speakers. Loved that damn truck!

 

They just called them Toyota Pickups prior to the Tacoma's release in 1995.5

In other parts of the world outside the US, they were and still are called the Hilux

T-100s were different than the Pickup or Tacoma, basically what ended up becoming the Tundra. T-100s though were basically just Pickups/Tacomas with longer beds and stronger frames.

Tacomas were a lot different than the Pickups they replaced...different engine options, frames, different IFS setup. Parts not interchangeable. The awful 3.0 v6 got replaced with the much more reliable 3.4l v6.

 

This was my first one. It’s a little bit aged in this picture but thing that was a great truck. When I bought it they want it I think it was $1200 for the extended cab. I remember thinking to myself I’m not spending that extra money for 18 inches of space. I don’t think I was two blocks off the lot when I regretted that decision . It was a manual transmission with a cloth bench seat and crank windows. I did have the dealer install the sliding back glass window and it did have a radio and air-conditioning. I went out and installed clock myself.

 

I've loved Toyota trucks ever since I saw the first one in Back to the Future

 

...This. My first Tacoma was a 1996, the second year of the Tacoma.

 

I miss the manual locking hubs and manual transfer case my Gen 1 had.

 

Remember where it all started. I think it was 1979 or 80. 4x4, single cab, 6' box, 4cyl., 4 spd, solid front axle. Those things were legendary!

 

Back when I was a BMX racer wannabe ha!

Everyone wanted a Toyota truck like Mike Buff's (BMX Action Magazine test pilot) seen in the background in this photo