1985 Toyota Pickups for Dummies

1985 Toyota Pickup Truck - Generation 4

The company vehicle here at Antisocial Network HQ is the third in a line of Toyota pickups dating all the way back to a 1988 model. The '88, believe it or not, is still the company "beater" for airport parking and trips to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. So our staffers were interested to find, on Leaf Group's niche site ItStillRuns.com, a post by returning DotD nominee Brooke Ashley entitled "1985 Toyota Pick-Up Specifications." The hyphen, we suppose, is the OQ's; and on eHow.com, writers were never allowed to change such goofs...

Well, we asked the motorheads among us just what things one might consider "specifications" for a pickup truck. Of course there's the usual drive train specifications and overall dimensions, which Ashley covered (sort of). We aren't certain where Brooke came up with some of her information though. For instance, she said,

"The extended cab was able to reach 190 horsepower with a 3-liter engine, and was offered in four-wheel drive... "

...which is utter bushwa, since North American Toyota trucks weren't offered with the 3VZ-E (3-liter V6) engine until the end of Generation 4 in 1987; and no Toyota pickup managed 190 hp until generation 6, almost a decade later. Oops... Brooke also displayed a distressing lack of curiosity about the Toyota pickup, since she never bothered to mention its cargo bed. She gave no information about the bed dimensions (50 inches wide, 72 inches long) or the cargo capacity (1100 pounds); just a brief mention of the towing capacity. Instead, Ashley found it necessary to describe the interior...

"The monochromatic color schemes for the 1985 Toyota pickup included light brown and gray. Carpeting featured tweed trim and seating was vinyl with upholstered tweed trim."

Ummmm, yeah: that's a specification... Nope, Brooke got the engine wrong (by a decade), never mentioned the trim levels (Standard, Deluxe, SR5), and omitted important information about cargo capacity. We assume that's because her Creative Writing degree included "creative reading," and she managed to conflate several different model years into one: classic "specifications" for the Dumbass of the Day award! Oh yeah, and Leaf? the image on the post is not a Toyota, it's a late '90s model Ford F150. In fact, none of the images are of a Toyota...

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