Toyota HiAce Pickup (Only 29k miles)

There is something brilliantly Japanese about a vehicle like this. Built simply, built properly and designed to work for a living, very few HiAce pickups were ever treated as anything other than commercial vehicles. Which makes finding one nearly 40 years later in this sort of condition quite remarkable. This is a 1985 Toyota HiAce Pickup, an extremely original Japanese-market example with genuinely low mileage and Japanese history. It has been in Ireland for the past four years and, importantly, hasn’t been turned into a modified show truck or messed around with. The bodywork is exceptional for a vehicle of this age and type, but underneath is perhaps even more impressive. It is remarkably clean, with the chassis, floors and running gear presenting about as well as you could realistically hope to find on an old Japanese commercial. Inside is much the same story. The cab is almost time-warp stuff. Original bench seating, original dashboard, rubber flooring and all the wonderfully simple details that make an early HiAce what it is. It really does feel like stepping back into 1985. And then there’s the four-speed column change. It’s an absolute joy. We weren’t expecting this little thing to drive half as well as it does. It’s incredibly lively, light and genuinely great fun to punt along. Everything about it feels mechanical and uncomplicated, and despite its commercial origins it has bags of character. These early Japanese pickups have become incredibly difficult to find, particularly in original condition. Most were simply worked until there was nothing left of them, while many survivors have since been modified or restored beyond recognition. An honest, low-mileage example like this is a very rare thing indeed. The truck sits on its original steel wheels, while the additional set of aftermarket wheels pictured are also included with the sale, giving the next owner the option of keeping it completely factory or changing the look. Is it fast? Absolutely not. Is it sophisticated? Not remotely. But that’s entirely the point. It’s tiny, useful, beautifully simple and ridiculously charming. The sort of vehicle that somehow gets more attention than cars worth ten times as much – and quite possibly one of the nicest surviving early HiAce pickups we’ve come across. A very rare little Toyota and an exceptionally cool thing.