THE FIVE SPEED REGULAR CAB TACOMA THAT EVERYBODY WANTS AND NOBODY CAN FIND
You already know why you clicked on this one. You have been scrolling listings for months looking for exactly this truck and finding nothing but automatics, four doors, and rigs that have been lifted, thrashed, repainted and sold three times. A 1997 Toyota Tacoma. Regular cab. 2.4L four cylinder. Rear wheel drive. Three pedals and a stick.
When we appraised this truck we ran the market inside a four hundred mile radius looking for comparable regular cab examples for sale. We found none. Not a handful. None. That is not a sales line, that is what the search returned.
Here is what it is like. You open a door that is not full of motors and modules, drop onto the bench seat, push in the clutch and turn the key. The little four cylinder settles into an idle you can barely hear over the fan. You put it in first, ease out, and by the time you are in third on Clearwater you have remembered something you forgot: a truck this size is genuinely easy to drive. It parks anywhere. It turns around in one shot. Nothing beeps at you. You roll into a job site, drop the tailgate, throw in whatever you came for, and drive home.
And yes, the air conditioning blows ice cold. We ran it ourselves. On a small pickup from this era that is the single thing most people expect to be broken, and on this one it is not.
The specifics: Sierra Beige Metallic over beige cloth, 2D regular cab, rear wheel drive, 2.4 liter DOHC sixteen valve four cylinder, five speed manual transmission, front bench seat, showing 123,417 miles. For the people who understand what these trucks are, that number is not a warning. It is the reason you are still reading.
What the CARFAX shows, clearly, is a truck that stayed registered and stayed home. It lived in Clarkston, Washington, renewed year after year on the same title, and it was last owned right here in Washington. It did not bounce around the country. It was kept, licensed and used.
We looked this truck over, we like it, and we think it is a good one. These do not come around often, and when they do they are usually rougher than this. If you have been waiting for a clean manual regular cab Tacoma, do not wait on this one.
Archibald's, 6902 W Clearwater Ave in Kennewick. Call 509-737-1199 and ask for it by stock number 20422A.
A negotiable documentary service fee of $200.00 may apply to each purchase.