Welcome! The newest member of the SR5 family
Its been a little over a year since I bought the Mojave in southern California. That trip last year was the longest distance I had traveled to buy a Toyota. To date I have found trucks to buy in California, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and Virginia. While the 1981 4×4 shortbox was equally as far away as California, it was the only one that I did not drive home as the motor was seized. I have had good luck with my long distance purchases- never broke down once on the way home with any Toyota.
So this year has been flying by and it seemed as if I might have to wait until next year to get in my Toyota fix. But as luck would have it- I found a 1982 SR5 4×4 shortbox for sale in northern California. After some negotiation I decided to go for it.
I managed to search for a flight by using Cheaptickets.comand found a very good price. The timing worked out well as I was able to leave work in the late afternoon, get on a plane and be in Detroit just in time to catch a flight to Salt Lake City Utah by 5:00 pm. This was a 3 1/2 hour flight which left just enough time to catch the next flight to Arcata, California by 9 pm. I finally arrived in California at 10:00 pm after 11 hours of flight time and 2 short layovers. Because Arcata is such a small town a direct flight would not have been possible and would have cost three times as much. So the two short layovers were a good compromise.
Since I had made the drive home from California last year I thought I had a good plan. While I had driven straight through from Los Angeles to Michigan in two days before, I decided that wasn’t a very good plan. I ended up staying the night in California Friday night chatting about the truck and other Toyota topics until about 1 am. The next morning the discussion quickly turned to Toyota trucks again, but after a couple of hours I had to hit the road- as much as I would have loved to stay longer.
A route was determined and I knew that I-80 was the best direct route from California to Chicago, but there’s no easy way to get to I-80 from northern California. Nonetheless it was decided I could drive south on 101 until Highway 20 which would take me to I-80 just before Reno, Nevada. As it turned out it took all day just to get to Reno, so even though I was already behind I decided to stay the night in Reno. Staying away from the casinos that night I was able to get an early start at about 7:30 and was on the road again. My goal was to get to Cheyene, Wyoming on Sunday, but again I came up short. I was not able to find a decent price on a room Sunday night, so I slept a couple of hours and hit the road again. I ended up passing Cheyene around 5 am Monday morning and continued driving into Nebraska. Then later Monday afternoon into Iowa. My next goal was to get through the Chicago area before dark, but again I didn’t make it in time. I ended up South of Chicago around 9 pm and driving in that area is just plain craziness. I finally managed to find I-94 and headed north into Michigan. And then home about 1:30 am. All in all it was a long long drive. But luckily the truck did not break down and the only accident I saw was West bound. I was also happily surprised that the truck got better than 20 mpg for each tank of gas on the trip. There was a definite trend with gas prices as high as $3.47 on the west coast to $2.57 average across the border of Michigan.
So what did I get for all of that trouble. A medium blue 1982 SR5 4×4 shortbox in nearly rust free original condition. The SR5 package included tachometer, trip meter, oil and voltmeter gauges, two color blue interior with bucket seats, carpeted floor and woodgrain dash. This truck still had the original Toyota stereo am-fm radio and optional cassette player. It also had the original SR5 white spoke wheels with black center caps and lugnuts. The spare is the original white spoke rim with a H78-15 Dunlop Snow Cruiser tire. The body had it share of dents and scrapes over the 171,000 miles of service, but the owner had take care to preserve the body with touch paint where needed. The engine bay was clean and the motor ran well. The 5 speed L52 transmission had a bit of a growl in some gears, but performed well.
So I am happy to be the new owner of this Toyota. But I also had the chance to see this great 
country of ours. There were many awesome sights along the way; both from the air and on the ground. I really enjoyed meeting the seller and our conversations about Toyotas. Northern California is a beautiful place to visit and the pictures and memories of the trip will live on with me at least as long as I own this truck.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:28 pm
CONGRATULATIONS on your find!!!…..I recently made a similar journey—I bought a 1983 SR5 Toyota 4X4 short bed off of eBay a couple of months ago. The truck was located outside of Portland, OR and ended up driving it over 3,000 miles to Virginia when I couldn’t get an auto carrier to pick it up. It was a GREAT trip without any issues….currently has 159,000 miles……you gotta to love a Toyota
September 9th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
great looking yota. Hey can someone out there, tell me how to join this site, I have tried every which way I can think of, and cant figure it out. Dont know what “Meta” is either, Every time I try to join, it says my email is not recognized/something like that. I would like to be able to view the galleries of yota’s that are behind the main screen I see here. Thanks for any help. David
September 12th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Hi David
Sorry for the confusion. At this time there is no way to “join” the website. I have way too many “friends” in China and Russia that love to spam the site with 100s of messages every week. So much so that I moved the format from a discussion list to a blog. I wish it were open to others, but for now I just dont have the time to monitor the activity. Also, I havent yet figured out a way to “hide” the center panel showing only the truck behind. Sorry. I really like your truck- maybe you saw the 83 terra cotta SR5 that I had? Very similar. Glad you like the site. If you have anything you would like to see posted here please contact me by email. Thanks