Way back in the early Nineties, Toyota made their first foray into the North American style of work trucks with the T100. Traditional truck buyers were less than enthused by the T100’s lack of V8 power and lesser capabilities and few buyers switched showrooms. Toyota followed up the T100 with the first generation Tundra, which was much better received. It was a true full size truck. This new truck was still down on power when compared to the traditional domestic work horses, but the driving experience was beyond the competition. With the latest redesign, Toyota has brought the Tundra to the forefront of truckdom with true 2 door work trucks and high end 4 doors for the boss and his family.

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The funniest thing happened during dinner last night. We were enjoying pre dinner drinks at TGI Friday’s in Buffalo, when a large group of Amish folks were leaving the restaurant. A few of us were trying to figure out which cars in the lot might belong to them. I suggested the all black Liberty or the Chevy half ton work truck. One of our friends thought it would be either the plain jane Honda Civic sedan, or the black Escalade (oh the irony). It turned out that they crammed about ten people into a brown Toyota Sienna. I guess seatbelts (or seats for that matter) aren’t of much concern to the Amish.
The doors were still open, when a young lady, clad in a traditional skirt an little white hat, hopped out of the van and ran over to the big Chevy. When she fired it up, we could hear the rumble from inside and one of the guys at our table pointed out the chrome dual exhaust tips. The young driver then backed out of the parking spot & stopped behind the Sienna. At this point, she proceeded to LIGHT IT UP!!!

Now a bit of wheel spin might be construed as an accident, but what happened next was too cool. The big black truck again backed up across the lot. This time, it was quite obvious that the front wheels were locked, while the rear tires spun themselves silly, filling the air with blue tire smoke. When she released the brakes, the truck lunged forward as the tires bit & then they started to spin again, creating more smoke. The truck then stopped, the girl jumped out & ran around to the passenger side & a guy jumped in to drive away! It was one of those moments that you wished for a video camera, because nobody is going to believe you.

Ah…to be an Amish youth in Rumspringa!