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In reply to the discussion: Experts: Translated Toyota Memo Shows Electronic Acceleration Concern [View all]Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)After it had been submerged for several hours they managed to get it running again using no spare parts. In the end they put it on top of a ten or so story building that was about to be demolished and then let it fall with the collapse..
Toyota is the pickup of choice amongst insurgents around the world..
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/10/14/why-rebel-groups-love-the-toyota-hilux.html
As the war in Afghanistan escalated several years ago, counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen, a member of the team that designed the Iraq surge for Gen. David Petraeus, began to notice a new tattoo on some insurgent Afghan fighters. It wasnt a Taliban tattoo. It wasnt even Afghan. It was a Canadian maple leaf.
When a perplexed Kilcullen began to investigate, he says, he discovered that the incongruous flags were linked to what he says is one of the most important, and unnoticed, weapons of guerrilla war in Afghanistan and across the world: the lightweight, virtually indestructible Toyota Hilux truck.
In Afghanistan in particular, he says, [the trucks are] incredibly well respected. So well respected, in fact, that some enterprising fraudsters thought them worthy of ripping off. The imitations, Kilcullen says, had flooded the market, leaving disappointed fighters in their wake. But then a shipment of high-quality [real] Hiluxes arrived, courtesy of the Canadian government, he explains. They had little Canadian flags on the back. Because they were the real deal, and because of how the Hilux is seen, over time, strangely, the Canadian flag has become a symbol of high quality across the country. Hence the tattoos.
Its not just rebels in Afghanistan that love the Hilux. The Toyota Hilux is everywhere, says Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger and now a fellow of the Center for a New American Security. Its the vehicular equivalent of the AK-47. Its ubiquitous to insurgent warfare. And actually, recently, also counterinsurgent warfare. It kicks the hell out of the Humvee. Anecdotally, a scan of pictures from the last four decades of guerrilla and insurgent warfare around the worldthe first iteration of the Hilux appeared in the late 60sreveals the Toyotas wide-ranging influence. Somali pirates bristling with guns hang out of them on the streets of Mogadishu. The New York Times has reported that the Hilux is the pirates ride of choice. A ragtag bunch of 20 or so Sudanese fighters raise their arms aloft in the back of a Hilux in 2004. Pakistani militants drive through a crowd, guns high, in 2000. It goes on. Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lebanon, Yemen, IraqU.S. Special Forces even drive Toyota Tacomas (the chunkier, U.S. version of the Hilux) on some of their deployments. (Click here for a gallery of Toyota trucks in conflict-torn regions.)