By Marc J. Elzenbeck
Choices usually involve tough trade-offs, summed up in design as “form follows function.” Sometimes you can get both, but function is primary. Comfort vs. Speed. Reliability vs. Sophistication. Safety vs. Cost.
When it comes to owning a vehicle, there is also a trade-off called “Living on Vashon.” Several factors give our environment surprising similarities to motoring in rural Costa Rica, Yellowstone Park, or a Bosnian war zone. Overboard? Well. At least in Bosnia, you could go to a car wash.
Point being, these places are all deferred maintenance hot spots. They have iffy roads with steep ditches. Neglected vegetation ideal for digging into paint, trees waiting to fall onto roads, seasonal pollen thick as mustard gas. Oncoming vehicles often prefer your lane over theirs, law enforcement is overstretched and sporadic, the same goes for mechanics. And if you get into an accident, however minor? Simple! Just get it towed to an off-Island body shop and wait 1-4 months while that metal gets ironed out.
Therefore, the per capita damage rate evident on Vashon’s vehicles is higher than in third-world countries. But there’s an upside: this also means there are some great cosmetically challenged values chugging around.
Enter the Island Car, the Island Truck. Maybe it shouldn’t be on the road and has barely legible registration stickers, looking like they used to say “08- 2008.” Maybe the rear brakes are shot, or the front, or the owner has been nursing them both along with the emergency brake for a few seasons. (Guilty, and more than once.) But the fact is they’re here and you need one for when somebody scrapes the passenger side of your Tacoma-detailed Audi Q7.
Our exposure process is Darwinian, and selects for certain brands and models, just as it de-selects others. The Toyota RAV4, its first and second generations (1996 and 2000) is the perfect example of a highly selected Island Ride that Refuses to Die.
The RAV4 was intentionally designed as a versatile worldwide vehicle platform that would stand up not only to deferred maintenance, but to systemic neglect and abuse. Toyota itself doesn’t even know exactly how many of them its plants have built, but estimates range between 16 and 18 million units.
It has an incredible support network, reasonable parts and repair prices, and the most popular owner forums on earth. A set of new tail lamp assemblies go for $69.31 on Amazon. Four screws off and back on, whether here or in the Khyber Pass. You’ve got new lights.
There’s a documented case on the RAV4World forum of one vehicle in Mongolia, a 1997 4WD manual transmission, 1.1 million kilometers (@700k miles), and still going. Its fixes included one alternator, three timing belts, and two clutches. The oil was changed every two years, whether needed or not.
When there’s a dirty RAV4 waiting in front of me for the ferry covered in green mold, what I see is success. The early RAV4s are still used for hire through jungles in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. They’re used across the Australian Outback, in African civil wars, and as overloaded troop movers in the Ukraine. So, if its hatchback was rear-ended 20 years back and a rusty left front fender was hammered back out by a guy named Furball during the pandemic, I see value. This is a level of engineering humility that not only has proven its truth and goodness decades over, but was also reaching right up past it towards the divine.
Pros: Refuses to Die. Cons: Not immune to thermodynamic laws. Requires occasional fluids. Boring and ugly when new. May outlive you.
