It's a RACECAR & Place to Call Home! Toyota Hilux Chinook Fully Cage Race Camper

Description

[This is a 1974 (1973?( Toyota Hilux Chinook built to race in the race series 24 Hours of Lemons. I'll be updating this listing with more information as the week goes on, but I wanted to get this listed so that the auction ends shortly after the checkered flag at Heartland Parked 24 Hours of LEMONS race... Because I don't want to bring this thing home after the event...]
Are you the kind of person who treats life as a spectator sport, you just kind of waft around from internet forum to internet chatroom, reading about the adventures of others, looking wistfully at the facebook pages detailing the vacations of relative strangers who have added you as a friend, or watching the travails of bold adventurers on youtube and then say to yourself, "Wow, that all looks like fun, but I just don't have time for that in my life right now. I need to go check out that car blog because I think I just heard that they may have updated the interior options on the new Corvette." It's ok to admit it: You have custom built about 137 new cars using dealer websites. You've scrutinized every detail and picked out the exact perfect option packages and color combinations, and then just let them sit there. On the web. The perfect virtual car. And it'll stay perfect because it'll never be built, never be driven. And you're still driving around that same old 1991 Buick Lesabre in Light Beechwood Metallic that you got when your grandmother lost her license for knocking over her neighbors mailbox one too many times. She didn't willingly hand you the keys, Oh No-- Your mom had to take them from her and tells her "It's at the shop" whenever Granny says she needs to run to the store because she's out of Fireball.
"It's practical."I know."It'll get me where I need to go until I'm ready to pull the trigger on the new Corvette."You said the same when the Camaro SS came out. Same when the Hellcat came out.
"It's not a good time. I'm also saving for a house."Start with just sharing an apartment with some friends.
Look, I get it. You like to watch. You like to plan. Practical isn't a 4-letter word to you. But listen, buddy, if you don't get off the couch and do something, pretty soon you're not going to be in any sort of condition where you'll even be physically ABLE to do something. Or worse; every single day people's lives are cut unexpectedly short. And I'm sure many of them had things they were holding off doing and probably even had big plans for the future.
"Some day."
Well, make 'Some Day' today.
...Ok, maybe not TODAY, today. But Today as in Sunday, August 25th which is when the auction ends.
That's right, on Sunday, August 25th you can start LIVING!
I recognize it isn't easy to just wake up one day and start running, Forest Gump style. So I'll start the adventure for you, you can follow along on Instagram, and then on Aug 25th you can pick up where I left off. That doesn't mean you MUST continue the journey I started, but it's one option. Think of it like the sentence starters your middle school teacher gave you when you had to write a Jane Schaffer style essay. Once you get the flow of it, you can take off on your own free-form adventure!
Here's the deal: I'm pretty eaten up by this race series called 24 Hours of Lemons. I've been doing it 10 years now. It's given me an excuse to try all sorts of of things I never would have otherwise ever attempted. I've met some great people and traveled to some pretty neat places. This year, the series is holding their first ever event in Kansas at Heartland Motorsports Park near Topeka. What a perfect excuse to go check out a part of America I've never been to before! So rather than just build a racecar, tow it to the track, and then race it I've decided to drive the race-prepped car to the track.
... or in this case, an RV. A race-prepped RV.
and by "race-prepped" I mean it has all of the safety equipment required to pass technical inspection* in the 24 Hours of Lemons race series-- things like a 1.5x.120 DOM six-point roll cage, and SFI rated fire suppression system, a fixed back race seat, an electrical cutoff switch, a 5-point safety harness, battery tiedown, water-only in the radiator, at least 1 functioning brake light... and so on. You can read the rules on the Lemons website.
Wait, aren't the cars supposed to only cost $500 in order to participate?
Yes, and I did not pay quite that much when I purchased the Chinook. The seller tried to take it to the junkyard but the junkyard refused it because there was too much wood used in the construction they said [there really isn't] so they couldn't give him an accurate weight for the steel content. Having been rejected by the scrap dealer, the only thing left to do was to sell it to ME! I had room in the budget to buy a carburetor rebuild kit, some hoses, some fluids, and some filters. I also purchased and installed some budget exempt items like new brake master cylinder, new wheel cylinders, new brake flex lines, and new brake shoes, and new drums for the front. "For the front!!1!1!??" Yes, for the front. This baby has 4 wheel drum brakes. Think of it: There's more friction surface area on just one brake shoe than there is on a typical disc brake setup, and the Chinook has TWIN LEADING front brake shoes. It's only a matter of time before them F1 guys realize drums are the way to go.
Additional budget exempt items that were put on this include the safety equipment including the roll cage and the race seat fire suppression system, and the tires.
Ahh, yes, the tires. Only the finest white walls for this race-rv.
Anyway, I've convinced (kidnapped?) some Canadian who will be traveling with me and our intention is to actually drive the RaceChinook and follow Rt 66 starting at the Santa Monica pier hopefully on Tuesday and driving into Galena Kansas by Friday before heading to the track by noon for technical inspection and BS inspection, which is where we'll try to convince the supreme court justices that the RV really is only a $500 vehicle. I don't think we'll have a problem with that.
That said, the RaceChinook hasn't driven further than 500 yards under its own power as of this writing. Heck, I only just finished the roll cage about 2 hours ago...
So, Let's just say you're bidding on a Toyota Hilux Chinook that has a California title signed over to me that I will in turn sign over to the winning bidder. What condition it will be in at the end of the auction remains to be seen. The race ends on Sunday at 3:30pm local time which is just before the close of the auction. It is currently running and stopping, but it could very well be Done Blowed Up by the end of the auction/race.
Or by the Arizona border.
I'm going to think positive and say the RaceChinook will be at the Heartland Motorsports Park, and it'll be in a condition to encourage the next owner to have an adventure. That adventure may begin with the need to replace the engine, transmission, drive axle, kitchen sink, or any number of items.
If she's still running, you can consider flying in and driving her the rest of the way along Rt66 to the beginning of the Mother Road in Chicago!
Speaking of kitchen sink-- know that the interior has been pretty much gutted-- No, I didn't remove it for "adding lightness" so we could race it-- it just didn't come with much in the back besides a bunch of pillows, a mattress, a salad spinner that appears to double as a thong washer, and some repair manuals with the pages stuck together. So there is no functioning electrical in the back, there is no plumbing, there is no generator, and there are no water tanks underneath. That was all removed by a previous owner. Think of it as a blank slate to build the RV of your dreams FOR REALZ and not just virtually on the manufacturers website. Go ahead and use all of that money you've been setting aside for the house for upgrading the RaceRV into your new dream home on wheels!
You want to talk PRACTICAL? How's about a car that doubles as a house? How about a house that doubles as a Race Car? You like to spectate? What better way to spectate than from right there in the middle of an event? You see RVs all over the infield of NASCAR events with spectators sitting on top of them so they can get a better view of the action-- well with this RaceChinook you can see the action UP CLOSE from the middle of the pack every time you enter a Lemons race yoruself! This is just win after win after win after win.
Now go ahead and live a little. Bid.
*pass technical inspection: Technically, it has not passed technical inspection as of this writing, but I'll update the listing on Friday, Aug 23 by 5pm local time to confirm it did indeed pass tech inspection.