Toyoland Featured Fan

Toyoland is home to many fans of Toyota and we like to give them the chance to show their pride! Please feel free to send us your stories, pictures- whatever. A Toyota is just a car until someone loves it. Somehow, it then becomes a member of the family. It shares our journies- physical and spiritual. As the rock group Queen sang, "I'm in love with my car/Got a feel for my automobile."

If you are in love with your Toyota, please tell us why. Maybe you and your car can become Toyoland Featured Fans!

Our first featured fan is Roger Sands of Morehead, Kentucky and his faithful truck Hibby.

Hibby is this extra cab 1992 Toyota pickup with 22-RE motor. Hibby makes a daily 87-mile commute each way to work in Georgetown, Kentucky. All of that driving has added miles to the odometer, of course, and as of today, Hibby is nearing the 600,000 mile mark! That's more than 2.5 times the distance to the moon! Here's Hibby's odometer:

Hibby is still running strong, with steady care from owner Roger Sands. "I change my oil every 10,000 and use 10W-30 Pennzoil and Fram oil filters," Sands said, "It still gets about 26 mpg and I wouldn't take anything for my truck." Given the high mileage, Sands says that he has, "done very little," to the truck. He has changed two clutches and a fuel injector. "The motor," he says, "has never been apart."

He bought Hibby shortly after becoming a team member at Toyota Motor Manufacturing in Kentucky thirteen years ago. He has a "wonderful" wife and three sons, aged 16, 13 and 6. Somewhere along the way, the boys gave the truck the nickname Hibby; it's been Hibby ever since. Sands enjoys golf, ATV riding and camping with the family in a pop-up camper pulled by Hibby.

Toyota has a reputation for quality, built on trucks like the Sands' Hibby- over half a million miles of Kentucky road, kids and camper in tow. Sands recently bought a Toyota Prius to use as the primary commute vehicle, so Hibby should get some well-deserved rest. But Hibby will stay on the road, an unforgettable member of the Sands family. I know that they will forever think of Hibby as, "what a truck should be."

Thanks to the Sands family for sharing and good luck with both Hibby and your new Prius.

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