Regular readers of Bananaverse might remember the tragic end to my beloved 1989 Toyota 4 Runner back in March. Since then, I have attempted to live without a motor vehicle by ridding my bike, or public transportation like buses and trains, occasionally getting taxi’s and bumming rides from friends. On the occasions that I needed transportaion, I just rented a car. It was a great plan, except it got old real quick.

Now with the pending visit of THE NIECE, I recognized that a motorized transportation was a necessity. Now being an old cheap bastard, I thought I could just pick up some cool old pick-up. How wrong I was! Anything old had one of two issues; either to many miles, or two expensive.

Meanwhile in Bananaverse, my better half’s 2003 Volkswagen Passat decided that it wanted to act up. And by acting up, I am not talking about little problems, but major ones. In fact, it the Passat was starting to spend a good amount of time at the repair shop and put a huge dent into our savings. So my better half needs a new car.

So it was decided that today we would go look at a Toyota Prius for her commute and that we would look for a good deal on a used truck. Turns out there is a 4 month waitting-list for the Prius and every freakin good used truck was only a few thousand dollars cheaper than a new one.

So this afternoon, I purchased a silver 2008 Toyota Tacoma with Access Cab. It is one of the best selling compact pick-up trucks available in the U.S. and is manufactured at the NUMMI plant in California. So at least it is somewhat American.

The truck was purchased from Toyota of Santa Cruz. The salesman did a fine job taking us around and giving us options. My better half and I even left for a talk and lunch before committing to the purchase with the salesman being real cool about the whole process. The price was very fair since we got the Costco price.

If you are looking for a Toyota, ask for Kinglsley “King” Snow. Tell them Guy sent you. I did not explain “Banana” to him.

I am pretty stoked about the truck. Since I only drive about 6K miles a year, spending lots of dough on a truck would be stupid. But I did need one that was reliable and got decent gas mileage. So the Tacoma fit my need perfectly. I will be adding a shell to latter next week so Mr. Muggins will have a safe place to ride.

Now the plan is that my better half will drive the new truck until her Prius shows up. So I almost have a new truck to drive. Almost.