I bought this a year or two ago and haven't done much with it other than start to pull the engine as the one in it was seized by the highschool kid that owned it. Originally it had a 20R with dual side drafts I believe. Fly-N-Hi is who built that big toy monster truck that got sold to mexico and semi-recently ran over a bunch of people when it crashed into the stands. It was in magazines and a matchbox toy was based on it in the 80's. This truck has all the signs it was their shop truck, all the shocks, headlight louvers, sunvisors, tilt bed, chromed or stainless everything. I'm trying to figure out if anyone saw this in a magazine, or knows any of it's history. It's pretty over the top. Here's a gallery of pictures of it! 1979 4x4 Toyota Hilux Show Truck - Imgur
WOW!! Cool, thanks for all the pics! Would be cool if some1 had some pics of this rig from back in its day!! or atleast a story of it...maybe the OG owner!!
I just posted a link to the pics on a local forum. The guy that started the thread probably owned the truck or at the very least knew it back in the day. Here's a link to the thread its worth it to join the forum if for nothing else than to see Odie's incredible history of toyotas. NW-Wheelers Forums
Mark Dye was the Original owner and builder of that truck. It was a promotional truck he built for Fly-N-Hi. He sold the business years ago and the new owner filed bankruptcy and reopened the shop. Mark was into Monster trucks originally in the 80's thanks to Big Foot. He later got into rock crawling and Baja racing. Through out the early 2000's Fly-N-Hi had their own Baja team. When Mark's brother passed away in 2008 he decided to sell his share of the business. At one point they had about every aftermarket company in the country knocking on the door for sales of product to testing products for them. I remember bringing Kicker Audio in for the first time in 2006 and then with in 6 months bringing in Fosgate. The shop used to have one of the best reputations in the country but in 2008 everything went downhill with the owner split and sale. Wish I could give you more information on the truck. It was really something for about 15 years until Mark gained new interest.