The Many Toyotas of Suriname

We spent a lot of time driving around the capital of Suriname. About half the population lives there - and the traffic is pretty bad. I started noticing how many different models of Toyotas were around us, most I had never heard of. They mostly drive on the left, and we figured a lot of these cars were used ones imported from Japan. For a interesting read about why used Japanese cars are exported all over the world, even to far away Suriname, read the Wikipedia entry about Japanese car safety inspections. They are frequent, costly, and stringent (no rusting allowed on springs for example). It gets very uneconomical to keep a used car more than 10 years, and so a heavily depreciated car will be exported to a third world, right hand drive country like Suriname. Or New Zealand. Just kidding New Zealand we love you. And if you're going to buy a used car from overseas, a Toyota is usually a safe bet. It became a game in the slow traffic to find models we hadn't seen yet. A good day would get us half a dozen, a slow one only two. Without further ado, the collected Toyotas of Suriname: Alphard Allex Aristo Avensis Auris Avalon Blade Belta Carina Caldina Carib Chaser Crown Corona Corolla Camry Corsa Demio Estima Fielder Funcargo Harrier Hilux HiAce Isis IST Ipsum (good looking compact wagon) Kluger Lumiere Land cruiser Light Ace Mark X (flashy RWD sedan) Mark II Noah Opa Passo Parade Premid Premio Precio Porte Prado Platz (one of our rental cars) Ractis Raum Rav4 RunX Starlet Soarer Spacio Sprinter Tercel Tundra Voltz Vitz Voxy Vic Vessona Wish Windo (like the Samuel L Jackson Star Wars Jedi charactwer Mace Windo)

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