Shop vans are cool. Built by cool people who know what they hell they are doing. Just like this awesome Toyota Hiace from Japanese Classics in Richmond, Virginia. Japanese Classics is the purveyor of all things Japanese Domestic Market (JDM), it’s like the H-mart of cars or something like that. A couple months back I noticed that they listed their shop van for sale, and I drooled for a couple hours over it. A van with a body kit is love at first sight. What can I say, I like vans.
Today I noticed it’s still for sale, who wouldn’t want this amazing piece of van-artwork?
What is a Toyota Hiace?
The Toyota Hiace debuted in 1967 as a passenger vehicle and commercial- use vehicle. The fourth-generation (which is this model) debuted in 1989. It seats up to eight people and both rear seats are removable for larger stowing capacity. It was so reliable and sturdy that the base platform was even used as an ambulance.
This particular Toyota Hiace has a 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine that cranked out 118 horsepower. A four-speed automatic transmission puts the power down to the rear wheels. Can you say drift van? Plus, just like my Toyota Previa you access the engine via the front seats (love surprising mechanics with that). It is currently sporting 115,000 miles, to this van that’s nothing. And as you can see it looks much better than the stock Toyota Hiace. Japanese classics updated the front valence, it was given larger 18-inch wheels, and more obviously a “Japanese Classic” vinyl sticker was slapped on the side.
I LOVE VANS!
I’m unfortunately not sitting on top of a pile of cash. If I was I’d have a collection of cool vans. Seriously, vans are awesome and you should go buy it. Priced at $11,995 this is a bargain!
The original post is almost a year old but I’m happy to say that it pointed us to Japanese Classics and we ended up buying this van for the business, Buredo, a few months later. The fur dash is gone- it had to go! We ended up pulling it off while driving back up to DC on I95. It has new life as a mobile marketing/cargo vehicle driving between Buredo locations. People really dig it and we always get compliments on it. We fitted it with a 360 cam system, front and rear parking sensors, intake (huge improvement), headunit, and other modern updates. We had to lift it a few inches though to safely drive it on DC streets. We cracked the front bumper the first week with it when we hit a pot hole a block from the White House. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff59c6ee99ba204b70679dc1f7b5008915a3bf689124e19bd24a8a88e0207dac.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/91e8de66e2f223943006215ca7f8e18e44ca1d510351bebf8244631e48db993f.jpg