Being a superstitious guy, writing about my old faithful Toyota is quite the internal struggle. I just recently completed a 9,639 mile road trip from Boston, Massachusetts, zig-zagging across the country, dipping in and out of Canada, and ending on Vancouver Island, British Columbia (more about that another time).
I want to sing the praises of this fine piece of craftsmanship. However, I am worried that as soon as I hit publish on this post, lightning will split a tree in half, and send it crashing down onto the hood of my beautiful, well loved 1991 Toyota Landcruiser, fondly referred to as Hec.
Threats of forest on vehicle violence aside, I have to take this opportunity to heap some love on the SUV that has given me so much.
First things first. I bought this beauty for $3200 while I was living in San Louis Obispo County California as a present for myself when I turned 29. I had been dreaming of having a converted van or adventure mobile to camp and bum around in for ages. It was time. I did my due diligence, met a random guy off Craigslist in a parking lot, and after a test drive, the rest is history.
After getting all the fluids swapped out, brakes rebuilt, and new belts, I was a man on a mission. Next I removed the seats, experimented with different platform bed/kitchen options, constantly tinkering, tweaking, scrapping and starting over. Shoutout to my old landlord Ron, who very graciously allowed me to use his garage and tools. He was an old hippie who had once converted a school bus and drove it to Mexico, so maybe he saw me as a kindred spirit.
Many months later, with a handful of small weekend excursions under the belt, I hit the road in the Cruiser along with my now Fiancé, and our pooch Cujo. We were on the ‘no plan plan.’ Work our way up the west coast through California, Oregon, and Washington, eventually dropping Maren off at her new home in Vancouver.
Along the way somewhere, we named the car Hec, after the scruffy, scrappy, ill tempered but lovable character from Hunt For the Wilderpeople (if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and Netflix it stat). He found his way into our lives and our hearts, keeping us safe on icy mountain grades, muddy washed out forest roads, and butt puckering switchbacks.
A few years and renovations later, constant tinkering to keep Hec legal, and we were off cross country again. This was the second time we packed our entire lives into a 29 year old vehicle to hit the road. Surfboards, snowboards, suitcases, duffle bags, tents, tools, camera gear, a junkyard dog, you name it we packed it.
Hec took care of us the whole way. Easy riding at 55 MPH, except for those grades in Colorado and Montana where it was more like 20…or occasionally 15. It isn’t always sunshine and rainbows with a car that is nearly your age, and I don’t want to make it out to be a cakewalk. There were lots of hiccups and head scratching moments out on the road.
We accidentally picked up a hitchhiking mouse in South Dakota. We blew fuses, leaked fluids, guzzled gas, drove through 100 degree plus weather with no AC, spliced wires, used a paperclip and morse code to diagnose a check engine light.
There were more trips to AutoZones than I would like to admit. Our brakes finally gave out in Zion National Park and I thought for a second we were headed over the edge on some switchbacks. A more sane person may have thrown in the towel, decided that keeping this old Cruiser running just wasn’t worth it.
One thing I will never claim to be is sane.
These are the quirks of Hec. You have to learn to love them, or at least tolerate them. He’s a scrappy underdog. They are a small price to pay for the endless adventures, and winding roads he has taken us down. Thanks for all the memories buddy, here is to the next 215,000 miles.
Photo cred for the majority of these photos to my wonderful fiancé Maren Preuss, more work at www.marenpreuss.com