Our KS3's Birthday: 25 October 1996
I can't quite remember what spurred the decision, but in late 2022, we were down to "just" the two Subaru Sambar Dias Classic vans. Sometime in November, I remember perusing the Car From Japan website. They are, like lots of others, an "aggregate" of sorts that lets you view available JDM vehicles across many geographic areas of Japan and from many sources. Quick word on Car From Japan - Initially I was worried that they might be a scam, and that I was essentially yeeting our hard earned money into the sun. Thankfully things worked out, and they were just fine to deal with. (In contrast, I cannot recommend enough against Mitsui.)
In our case, we stumbled across yet another Subaru Sambar with the "Classic" treatment. This time it was a 2WD truck, and it had 31,661 km (19,661 mi) when we got it home from the dock.
So, back to the vehicle in question. I saw it on Car From Japan, but it was actually on the lot at Noguchi Motors in Naruto City, Tokushima Prefecture.
We really liked what we saw. The only "negatives," and they were minor, that we could see were a few dents in the back of the cab where the bed ends. That just told me that it was a real truck, and not some pretender that never did work! (Death to Garage Queens)
Purchase price of the vehicle including shipping to the Port of Honolulu, Hawaii from Japan was $8,500. I thought that was a really good deal, considering the age, condition, and low kilometers on the clock. We'll go over the real costs of importing a Kei vehicle (at least to Hawai'i) in a future post. Suffice it to say that to get this one here and on the road it's more like $11,000+. Granted, you can spend a lot less money on the truck - I've seen trucks listed for around $1,500 in Japan on these sites. You're still going to pay around $2,000 to ship it to Hawai'i at least, and then you've got a really cheap truck that needs a bunch of work right off the bat. Mechanical problems, rust problems...no, thank you. We chose to be picky on this one, and in the end I think we found a great example at a fair price. We sent our payment out to Car From Japan at the end of November, 2022, and on January 18, 2023 we met our newest truck at the Port of Honolulu to bring it home.
Wearing the prerequisite "shipping grime" and windshield covered in paperwork / grease pencil writing, this is what the truck looked like when we saw it the first time. I got to drive it home, and within about 1/2 a mile (0.8 km) I knew we had really picked a winner. It easily drove the best of any of the four Kei vehicles I had driven to that point... I'm sure the 12 psi (0.83 bar) in the tires had something to do with that, considering it should be more like 30 psi (2.1 bar)!
One note of caution, which we'll cover more in-depth in a future post: That's my arm on the right side of the photo. Notice how the mirrors are folded flat against the cab? It pays to inspect and photograph the truck before you touch anything, as I would later get home and discover that they folded the mirrors in so hard that the plastic split vertically along a seam from where they mount on the door. The mirrors would both later fall off at separate times. More on that in future posts... All in all, it was great to know that we had a really solid truck with only scratches in the bed / bed rails in addition to the dents we knew about. No rust to speak of.
I'm pretty sure this is right after we got home. I had stopped along the way to put a little gas into the tank, as they ship them nearly dry. Absolutely LOVE the Classic gauges. Just wish Subaru would have included a tachometer with them. The (EN07C, a carbureted version) engine in this truck revs to a 7,000 rpm redline. It makes maximum power after 6,000 rpm. It would be nice to know how far I'm flinging it into the stratosphere when I rev it up!
Japanese vehicles are required to carry some sort of signaling device should they break down and need to pull to the side of the road. This is the first one I've seen make it to me with the flare still in place!
We got the truck home, cleaned 'er up, put air in the tires, and started enjoying it.
Here's a shot of the truck all cleaned up and registered in Hawai'i:
At first I wasn't too sure what I thought of the "wind / rain deflectors" on the side windows, but they have grown on me. Initially I thought of removing them, but I've since decided against that, as they're part of the JDM vehicle! (ultra rare, JDM acrylic!)
Here's a shot of me at Marine Corps Base (MCB) Hawai'i alongside the Ulupa'u Crater (which is behind you in this photo). This is the base I was stationed at when I was in the United States Marine Corps (1990-1994), and I have lived right outside the main gate now for the last 24 years. Thankfully, I have base access again! Just ahead of the truck in the background you can see "KT" also known as "Kansas Tower," and by it's Hawaiian name, Pu'u Hawai'iloa. It is a cinder cone. Maybe we'll cover the geography of the area later. ;) Behind that, in the distance, you can see the Ko'olau Range. Another fascinating (to me) piece of history, the Ko'olau Volcano, rose to an estimated 9,800 ft (3,000 m), or like three times what it is now. Today, the highest point of the remaining shield volcano is 3,100 ft (945 m). On the roads, we climb to maybe 1,100 ft (335 m), but with all of 38 hp on tap when it left the factory in 1997, it's a struggle. 4th gear, foot to the floor for 4 - 6 minutes depending on the route, managing all of ~40 mph (~65 kph) at an estimated 5,500 rpm. As you read previously, this is one of the things we intend to change with this whole "projekt" thing.
Another shot from on MCB Hawai'i, this time at Pyramid Rock Beach, which is in the northwest corner of the peninsula that MCB Hawai'i sits on. From this orientation, the "Pyramid" that the beach gets its name from is off roughly to the left. In the distance, behind the cab, you can see the Ulupa'u Crater that the above shot was taken from.
One more shot from on base, this time from the parking area adjacent "Secret Beach." ...which, I suppose is not exactly "secret" anymore. The 4 door late 90s Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS that I parked next to demanded that I take a picture. Unfortunately, the left side of the Impreza had substantial body damage. Still...my favorite Subaru design era. In the "About Me" section, this is the same era Subaru (minus the trunk wing) that we swapped the WRX motor into. ;)
As you can see, we still definitely do "truck stuff" with it! A bunch of crap from the house to go to the dump, "retired" Hawaiian Airlines service carts, and a whole damn couch from Costco! I was pretty surprised that the couch fit and just required me to drop the tailgate.
In the above photos, you may have noticed that the wheels changed. No, they're wheels. "Rims" are the outer edges of wheels. We'll cover the wheel upgrade in an upcoming post. I really like how it changed the look of the truck, though. We kept the original "steelies" + hubcaps on the side.
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