New owners: 1993 HT/long chassis

Greetings! We are the happy owners of a 1993 Hiace extended high top (former ambulance) 5sp. manual 4WD van. ~22,000 original miles, great interior condition, and 2.8L 3L motor.

We are awaiting a maintenance inspection here in Seattle to establish a path towards baseline maintenance status (shout out to Michael at Roamer NW!!), and plan to do a simple camper/road trip build out.

Maiden run from Portland where we purchased it to Seattle where we live yielded 30.6 MPG driving steadily on I-5 at 95 km/hr (the van's obvious sweet spot) in constant rain, on newer BFG KO-2 tires. This is a partial tank reading, and we're obviously quite pleased. We plan to keep testing fuel economy in a variety of conditions as we get to know the van.

Wanted to introduce ourselves as we join the Hiace community.

Warm regards, Mike and Roy

Hello folks and welcome to the forum.

I've seen a few YT videos of these Hiace ambulances, such as here:

I think they say the van featured in that video is a '96 with ~60k km and it has a V8.

There's another one here:


Oh and here:


Be great to see how similar yours is to these? The three in these videos are surprisingly different given the small batches I suppose they were made in. I expect each customer had their own requirements and the last one (the one with the very low miles) seems more like for routine non-emergency patient transport rather than rushing people to hospital.

While it's a bit of a shame in some ways to convert these away from thier original arrangment I realise people can't really keep an ambulance as a daily driver and while nice for shows and things they are not really practical and will clearly make a great camper etc.

It's interesting to see just how 'normal Hiace' many of the apparently bespoke features are. One that comes immediately to mind is rear heater controls which are exaclty the same as in my van. Bear in mind that many of the fittings are essentailly irreplaceable so customise with care.

Anyway, it'd be great if you're able to post in the 'show us yours' pages.

The HIMEDIC features in the Toyota Technocraft Co Ltd timeline, see:

https://www.toyota-cd.co.jp/english/aboutus/history/

It says there they were made in Yokohama.

Ny camper van, which I understand was converted from a bare van by Toyota Technocraft, has the 'Plant' label code on the Frame / VIN plate as 'C26', (bottom left corner). I've not been able to work out what this really means. Not that it really matters but it'd be great to know if yours also has the C26 code, if indeed you have a HIMEDIC.

Cheers!

Greetings!



Ours has been re-painted in the current Lunar Rock color and all the medical equipment removed, so a camper build-out requires little sentimental detachment. We discussed another ambulance van and had decided to maintain the exterior ambulance paint and lights, and as much of the interior medical kit as possible.

As luck would have it, we saw a 4WD ambulance yesterday with the Lexus V-8 and which had a wider body!

Warm regards, Mike

Moonbuggy wrote:

Greetings!



Ours has been re-painted in the current Lunar Rock color and all the medical equipment removed, so a camper build-out requires little sentimental detachment.  We discussed another ambulance van and had decided to maintain the exterior ambulance paint and lights, and as much of the interior medical kit as possible.

As luck would have it, we saw a 4WD ambulance yesterday with the Lexus V-8 and which had a wider body!

Warm regards, Mike

Nice van!!  Looks like mine.

roomba wrote:

Moonbuggy wrote:

Greetings!



Ours has been re-painted in the current Lunar Rock color and all the medical equipment removed, so a camper build-out requires little sentimental detachment.  We discussed another ambulance van and had decided to maintain the exterior ambulance paint and lights, and as much of the interior medical kit as possible.

As luck would have it, we saw a 4WD ambulance yesterday with the Lexus V-8 and which had a wider body!

Warm regards, Mike

Nice van!!  Looks like mine.

Hello 'roomba' and welcome to the forum.

Is that a LH119V 'Cruising Cabin'? The RHS windows (and pop top) look right for the camper fit out.