How I bumped into a 1990 Toyota TownAce: Procuring & fixing the van

I knew someday I'd get a van. Probably a modern one, especially since Kia, Toyota & Mercedes had taken it upon themselves to flood the market with vans suddenly.

BHPian ///RMan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Sometimes destiny makes you eat your words, and this is my story of one such instance. Gladly though!

In my initial thread of finding and buying the W124, one of the criteria while hunting for the car was:

Uniqueness - Since I do not see myself buying another one of its kind in the foreseeable future, I wanted to have something unique. Be it the body style, or the engine.

I had made the above comment keeping in mind that one old car will be enough pleasure (and pain) and is what my financial bandwidth only could afford. So I thought!

Fast forward to about roughly 2 years after acquiring the W124, I thought I had gathered funds to start the restoration of the W124. But like I said, destiny had other plans...

I'd been an absolute sucker for vans since childhood, growing up watching the A-Team to Scooby-Doo and everything in between, where vans were central characters to the plot. I'd found myself reading and waiting for updates on this thread by rrsteer about his HiAce search and purchase experience. I knew someday I'd get a van for sure, probably a modern one, especially since Kia, Toyota and Mercedes had taken upon themselves to flood the market with vans suddenly!

In my previous thread out here - The Turbodiesel Trot, I finished on these lines:

This spontaneous trip had been an absolute blast! The journey back as a passenger in the W123 was the cherry on the cake for me. But, while the cherry on the cake is always nice, it would not be as exciting if there were no cake at all, right?

So, what took the cake? Shall hopefully go to Town writing about it, hopefully soon.

Well, enough beating around the bush, I guess!

The cake (and a fairly large one at that) is this - the 1990 Toyota TownAce Super Extra!

I never was in the market for another old car, but as mentioned before, a van was always on the radar if anything popped up in the market.

In the meanwhile, I had window-shopped and looked at everything from the Matador, the MB100/MB140 and even an uber rare Honda StepWgn pictured here.

I wasn't really serious, more like I'd just keep tabs on what was available in the market.

It stayed like that till I made the trip to Ahmedabad to pick up the W123 300 Turbodiesel with my friend, and bumped into this TownAce. We got back to Bombay, and in about a fortnight, I had pursued, negotiated and closed the deal on the TownAce!

The car was kept parked at a friend's house in Ahmedabad for a couple of months.

After being in storage, the TownAce was pulled out and then on getting a good deal on a truck to get it to Bombay, the car was on its way to the city!

Being loaded onto a truck on the outskirts of Ahmedabad.

The truck arrived in Bombay after two days, delayed due to heavy rainfall and horrible roads en route.

Finally on Mumbai soil!

Like any typical old car, she headed straight to the workshop upon delivery.

At Loyal's workshop, where it was joined in with another Japanese car from the same era.

As far as packaging is concerned, the van showcases some great ingenuity and ideas that manufacturers come up with.

Dirty, mucky and dusty from the months of storage and now the rains, little mattered to me that day - the car was home and she was mine!

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