EBay add for a Mazda truck…

[Ken Gargett]

Can you imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning and found something which you have always dreamt about actually sitting in your driveway? If it was that nerdy girl (or boy – your choice) you had a crush on from year 8 whom you knew would eventually grow out of their pimples and become a great investment, then you’d probably be pretty happy. What if though, it was even something greater from your dreams???

Well, many years ago I had a dream that I could fly, but that was nothing compared to the dream I had of owning a box trailer which could be legally driven on the road without the need to be towed. Imagine how many women would be able to make the trip to the tip if they didn’t have to reverse a trailer? Probably three.

Where do I start with this little beauty? Colour; white-ish. More ivory but not ivory as in ground elephant tusk. An ageless colour really. Brown, which was a popular colour in the ‘70s and ‘80s isn’t an ageless colour. Look at what happens to young girls obsessed with tanning: At age 60 they have more wrinkles than a slug dipped in vinegar and because we now know from what the TV says, tanning is merely skin cells in trauma. Well this truck hasn’t even seen a picture of a beach so the only wrinkles it is likely to get is from running it into a parked skip bin.

The worse thing about brown cars, and many other cars I see on the road is that someone must have bought it new. What were they thinking? Did they want something that matched the colour of their dead uncle’s smoking jacket? Did they want something that wouldn’t appeared soiled if inadvertently driven into a sewage treatment works? I just don’t understand it. At least with a white car you can paint spots or stripes on it and look like a snow leopard or a zebra except with wheels and an idiot behind the steering wheel. There’s nothing you can do with a brown car other than set it on fire and turn it black.

Enough about the colour. Now it’s time for me to describe the mechanicals: Firstly let me start with the engine. From my research, the engine from this thing was developed by Formula 1 engineers who wanted to have an example of how not to produce horsepower. It produces about 60 hp but whoever put those poor starving, arthritic horses which were lined up for the glue factory to the test must have fiddled the books. In my opinion, the engine produces about four ponies and a three legged calf. Perhaps if turbocharged the results may be a little different but only by about a paralysis tick and some tinea. It’s true however that diesel engines are renowned for their torque, but not in the case of these things. The engine does produce ample torque if you need it to open jars, but when trying to cart a grand piano up a steep mountain pass you are lucky to get beyond 140 km/h in fifth gear. In fact, I’ll bring that back to 40 km/h in second gear.

There’s nothing wrong with the engine, it’s just that in typical Japanese ‘80s fashion they underpowered something (e.g. chopsticks for soup). To think that the Celica ‘sports’ car of the 1980s had a single cam 2 L engine when it would have been perfectly matched to a supercharged small-block Chev is just one example of bad mistakes. I’m not a conspiracy theorist (evident in the fact that I don’t have a beard and work in I.T.) but my guess is that it was their way to ensure that people didn’t keep their cars for long. My favourite car was a Landcruiser FJ45 with at 327 Chev, which lacking the wheezing straight six that it came with did what it always should have done; keep up with the traffic.

There’s nothing wrong with the gearbox either, except that 5th gear is a fantastic example of optimism and should only be used when a check with a spirit level has ensured that the road ahead is either level or sloping downwards.

The suspension is fantastic, although un-laden the rear is a little stiff and it is easy to get bogged when the road isn’t completely level. This is partly due to the fact that it has rear wheels so small that it suggests to me that it was originally designed as a roller skate for a giant. The wheels are really small but the rear mudguards would fit a rim straight off the shelf from a south-western Sydney’s tyre dealer. I’ve seen these trucks with normal wheels on the back and aside from making it look like the truck is ready to mate, they seem sensible. However, the little wheels make it easy for short people like me to load other people’s furniture on the back for a slow trip to its final resting place.

What about the interior? Well it’s amazingly original. Again, tan vinyl – something somebody chose. Oh no, let’s not go for the nice black or grey, lets choose baby-poo brown just to make us feel like we’re driving a nappy. The only thing missing in this truck’s interior is one of the original AM/FM radio knobs (not the knobs who broadcast on the radio, the ones that you turn). I’ve also fitted a fairly expensive stereo and speakers to it, but the rest is 1980s original tasteless fashion at its best.

What about the body? Well, beauty they say is in the eye of the beholder but I haven’t seen many beholders with beautiful eyes. In my view, this truck looks great. It looks like many of the new Korean vehicles on the market except maybe the Hyosung motorcycles. You might think that given its mere 28 years of age that it would either be full of rust or full of bog. No, wrong. The lovely old family that I bought this powered box trailer from looked after it so well that the only bit of rust is a small area in the ‘A’ pillar which is hardly worth worrying about. I used to worry about rust a lot and once had a dream that I was Iron Man but one that was made in a cheap Chinese factory with barely any zinc coating to protect me from the harsh atmosphere that we live in. I woke in a deep sweat imagining that one of my legs had rusted through and that I was going to have to rely on the neighbour’s poor MIG welding skills to help me out. So if you buy this truck you don’t even have to worry about the cabin falling off – and even if you it did there is still a nice strong chassis to cart you around on.

Luxuries, well there are plenty. In typical ‘80s Japanese fashion this thing was fitted with high end luxuries such as… doors.

Lots of people pretend that they don’t want “Stinken fuel injection, air conditioning or power windows, it’s just more things to go wrong. That’s because they’re poor and can’t afford to have sensible luxuries.

Now that I’ve reached the ripe old age of something, I really appreciate luxuries. I’m not fussed about cup holders, because that’s what thighs and scrotums are for. I do however like air conditioning but only for a short time. If I run the air conditioning for too long it dries my skin out and I start to look close to my age. I like power windows, because when I want to yell abuse at the car on my left it looks far more elegant to stay seated and watch the window drop down rather than duck down as if to reach for a Glock in an attempt to wind the passenger’s window down – by which stage I’ve rolled into the car in front of me and the whole moment is lost.

Where was I? The truck.

It comes with rego until the middle of the year. And a diesel engine guaranteed to ensure that your friends only borrow it once.

The front tyres are great, the rear tyres are near new, and there are four of them. It starts first time every time, provided you turn the key. Everything works except the people that live across the road from me.

It has a tow bar, so if you’ve ever thought it went fast up hills you can always attach a trailer full of blow-up dolls. It has a bull bar, which is good if you ever come across a bull that likes a drink. I also have some racks I made for it which enable you to carry very long loads or lots of toads (sounds like an extract from a kid’s book, but true).

I’ll even throw in a CD containing a mix of love songs.

Don’t hesitate because if I keep having the irrational thoughts that I’m having I might even keep the truck, repower it with an old Walkman and never want to sell it.

And in breaking news, I just remembered that I replaced the clutch master and slave cylinders, which I think would be more politically correctly known as CEO and Executive level cylinders.

Happy camping and for more recipes just write to me.

[Trevor2118]

Sorry Ken....I got bored half way through

[Ken Gargett]

trev, fair point. sent through by a mate. must say i was a bit surprised when i saw it. i'm not a car person but thought those that are might enjoy it. i did perservere - mildly amusing.