Saw an ambulance for sale on FBM. Was cheap, came with a bed, and it’ll half the time it takes you to get to races!
I almost bid on a Hiace Ambulance that was on BaT last week… Ambulances would be cool for a karting rig!
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Thats the one!
I feel like everyone I know has seen that thing
A New Hampshire teen was arrested for speeding while impersonating emergency personnel…
Details at 11
Do you have a replacement in mind TJ? I will mention I have a 2012 Toyota Sienna and If I take the middle seats out and fold the rear seats down I can fit a kart with minimal changes. Plus it tows up to 3500lb. Makes a great family vehicle too. Certainly not as unique as the LiteAce, but parts are easy to find.
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I have a deposit down on an equally cool replacement:
I just got a message that it’s service was completed today, so I’m hoping to go give it the once-over and bring it home next week. I’ll add details then!
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This is a subtle change, TJ.
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It is. I have a “type”.
This is a Toyota HiAce, the LiteAce’s big brother.
Benefits:
AWD
An actual passenger van, not a cargo van
3 rows of swiveling comfy seats
Longer, wider
Lower miles
Better in basically every way, and it has a ton of cool little weird Japanese features.
Cons:
Far more expensive than my hamster van, and above my original budget… But the wife is cool with it so…
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Hopefully your current rig goes into a bidding war, JDM stuff is and has been super hot. On the negative side, your timing sucks and ppl are still broke from X-Mas and their tax returns haven’t come in (just yet). Gotta find that sweet spot when you sell anything these days.
Both current and future rig are super kewl in my book 
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Fortunately the used car market is so hyper inflated there’s hardly ever a really bad time to sell right now. Had to move it before race season starts so I can get the new one outfitted!
Whoopsie daisy… jk I live in MA
Picked up the new rig today and drove it back 5 hours from Michigan. It performed flawlessly, super comfy and lots of power and torque to hold 75 mph all day, so I think we have a true interstate kart hauler now. This thing has so many awesome and weird features, can’t wait to show them off.
Also the hamster van auction ended today and we got a really good price for it, so stoked about that.
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JDM (slightly less) Compact Karting Van Part 2 - THE SEQUEL
Quick story on the new rig. I have been looking for this class/size of van since I started this whole crazy idea of buying a JDM imported van for karting, and the hamster van was sort of an accidental buy because I didn’t think I would win the auction for how low the price was. I got it for an absolute steal (as evidenced by what it sold for this time around… funding my race season off that flip), but I knew it was probably not quite big or powerful enough to do what I wanted with it, which was to use it to drive all over the Midwest. The LiteAce was actually pretty good, but I needed a tiny bit more space and I needed more power to really feel comfortable taking it on multi-hour trips. It was revving pretty hard at 70mph. It seemed to handle it fine, but I would hate that thing to shoot a rod through the top of the block (and the bottom of the passenger seat) on I-80, four hours from home. Also, there’s an obligation when you’re spending this money on a vehicle and you have a family to make it somewhat usable for other stuff like hauling things during Home Depot runs or whatever, and the LiteAce was a little too cargo-van-y for my wife and little dude. Plus it was RWD so it basically was only usable half the year here. So I started looking for something bigger and more robust that fit my needs better.
I had my eye on the next size up van, which included vans like the Nissan Caravan/Homy and the Toyota Hiace and the Mitsubishi Delica. I liked the Nissan because it was a bit boxier and seemed like it was a bit more luxurious. There was somewhat of an arms race in 90s Japan between the major manufacturers and their full-size van offerings. The Nissan seemed a little swankier, the Toyota more reliable and common, and the Mitsubishi was rugged and more off-road focused. I decided I would focus on finding the right Nissan, because it was a bit more rare and unusual and that’s unfortunately or not, usually a requirement for my vehicles; I like weird shit. I know an imported van is already weird and I probably don’t need to find the weirdest version of the weirdest thing, but I was looking anyway.
Found basically the Nissan that ticked all the boxes for me in Michigan at a JDM import dealer. It was the highest trim, had AWD, the biggest and best version of the diesel engine, low miles, and about the right price. Scheduled a visit to go check it out. Me and a buddy took a 5 hour trip out to Michigan and marveled at the wonder of a parking lot full of our childhood Japanese car dreams. Basically every cool thing you drove in Gran Turismo growing up as a millennial was at this dealership. But anyway we drove the van, it rode nice, but I wasn’t totally sold on it. First, it had no moon roof so the rear space felt claustrophobic and dark. And it didn’t feel like a massive step up from the LiteAce. I was hemming and hawing in their shop, going over pros and cons when a different van caught my eye. One that hadn’t been shown on the website yet, as it was in being photographed that day. It was a 1994 Toyota Hiace, but it had every option available and was in great shape. I asked about that one, and they told me they just got it in, it had super low miles and was really clean. I gave it the once over, and decided I was pretty interested in that one instead. The only issue was it was more expensive. We couldn’t test it because it needed initial servicing yet. But we studied it pretty hard. I had done my research and I knew it had the best engine, the right trim level, and it had full-time AWD. Plus, the feature list was crazy… I decided to put a deposit on it to save it, and would come back to look at it another time. Sort of bummed not to come home with a van that day, but the Nissan just wasn’t doing it for me. It wasn’t as nice as I had hoped. And my buddy prodded me into blowing the budget a bit because “if you’re going to spend the money, do it right and do it once”, which I agreed with. So we went back to Wisconsin with no van. The dealership was going to do all the usual service and maintenance and call me back when the Hiace was ready for a test drive.
Finally got the call last week, so we drove out there again yesterday to see if this was the one. One test drive and I was sold. We looked in every nook and cranny for rust or issues, but this thing is cleeeeean. No corrosion anywhere. It ran like a champ, almost everything worked including all the funky electronics, which is amazing given it’s nearly a 30 year old vehicle. And so we did a deal and I drove it back home yesterday 5 hours at about 75 mph and it performed flawlessly.
Okay that wasn’t really a short story… But anyway here’s a rundown and a couple quick pics!
• 1994 Toyota HiAce, fairly common van in Japan and other markets. We didn’t get them here but Mexico got them
• 3.0l diesel “1KZ-TE” engine, common in Hilux trucks, about 130 hp and 220 ft lbs of torque
• Full-time AWD
• A TON of cool Japanese quirks… including:
- “Joyful Talk” which is an intercom system so you can talk to the third row without yelling at them
- A built-in hot pot and mug, so you can heat up water/tea/coffee in the center console
- A built-in cool/hot box in the center console, so you can keep drinks at whatever temp you want and it even has a tiny freezer to make ice cubes
- Digital dash display (in '94…?!)
- Electronic sliding curtains on all the windows, which all work which is a huge surprise, usually these are broken
- Swiveling second row seats so you can make them rear-facing. You can also lay all the seats flat and push them together to make a flat sleeping surface if you want
- FOUR moon/sun roofs. One above the driver that pops up manually, a huge moonroof in the center row that’s electronic, and then an electronic rear that pops up like a little spoiler above the third row
- Soft-close electronic doors (again, in '94!), so you never have to slam the doors, just gently close them to the latch and the electronic mechanism grabs the door and latches it
- The seats are this very odd moldy brown/purple/green color/pattern, but they are so soft and super comfortable
Also it only has 51,500 kms (32,000 miles) on it. I think it’s the lowest mileage car I’ve ever bought. Anyway, I’m stoked on it obviously and it was more money that I wanted to spend but I think it’s going to be a super fun car and will do everything I want it to and more. I’ll be sure to update as we go but I have some things I need to do to it to make it a real race rig. First steps will be getting a decent radio, a must for road trips, removing the third row seats to fit a kart in there, and getting some fresh rubber on these wheels.
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Sweet ride…Fancy Curtains!
All thats missing is an “If this van is a rock’n don’t come a knock’n” bumper sticker!
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I have a decal printer… 
I am extremely jealous, TJ. It has always been a dream of mine to own a cool kart hauler. I always keep an eye out on auction sites.
My range is short school bus to airport shuttle to ambulance to sprinter van. All those things in that size range can be made very cool! One of these days, I will find one in my budget and my wife will not be happy when she comes home and it is in my driveway.
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I like the upgrade, but it needs the SSR super mesh from the old van!
Are you going to try to do any rust prevention or sealer to it? Japanese vehicles don’t do great with salt now, but ones from that time period were really bad about rusting here.
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New wheel setup on the way, don’t worry.
Yeah trying to figure out the best option to protect the underbody. I don’t know how much salt it will actually see, but it’s on the list to think about.
So rad. The features the Japanese had back in the 80s/90s would have put them so far ahead of everyone else had they brought them here.
Here’s some that’s was normal to me but maybe not to you guys in the US.
We had a Liteace (Could have been a hiace) as the company vehicle for an indoor track I ran. Four speed manual, column shift 