US officials have recently asked Toyota to figure out why its vehicles are showing up in so many ISIS videos, according to ABC News.Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to the US, told ABC that in recent years, as ISIS has risen to prominence in Iraq and Syria, the terror group has acquired hundreds of new Toyota pickup trucks.
"This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors," Faily told ABC. "How could these brand new trucks... these four wheel drives, hundreds of them -- where are they coming from?"
"The Toyota Hilux is everywhere," Andrew Exum, a former Army Ranger who is now the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy, told Newsweek.
"It’s the vehicular equivalent of the [URL="http://www.mercuryserver.com/forums/djdb.php?id=1504"]AK[/URL]-47. It’s ubiquitous to insurgent warfare. And actually, recently, also counterinsurgent warfare. It kicks the hell out of the Humvee."
The Hilux is apparently a very durable truck that has proven useful for terrorists lightly armed special forces.
[URL]http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/these-toyota-trucks-are-strangely-popular-with-terrorists-%e2%80%94-heres-why/ar-AAfdpSX?li=AAa0dzB&ocid=DELLDHP[/URL]
This is interesting...
Hiluxes also stand up to more than just normal vehicular wear and tear. [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVkedyQZfwQ"]In 2006, British TV show Top Gear conducted an experiment that illustrated this.[/URL]
"The show’s producers bought an 18-year-old Hilux diesel with 190,000 miles on the odometer for $1,500," Somaiya wrote for Newsweek.
"They then crashed it into a tree, submerged it in the ocean for five hours, dropped it from about 10 feet, tried to crush it under an RV, drove it through a portable building, hit it with a wrecking ball, and set it on fire.
"Finally they placed it on top of a 240-foot tower block that was then destroyed in a controlled demolition. When they dug it out of the rubble, all it took to get it running again was hammers, wrenches, and WD-40. They didn’t even need spare parts."