I had been looking for a while for something to replace our current camping set up, which often involved both our cars carrying our camping gear. You might be asking some questions at this point.

1. Why two cars?

2. Why so much equipment?

Well, firstly, we have a Mazda 3 and a Toyota Prius. Hardly fire-trail ready, or able to carry much in terms of camping, even with a roof rack! Of course, I have seen several people make a very capable car-camper out of Priuses (or is the plural Prii? Priusii??). Nonetheless, it generally felt silly to drive two cars to the same campground.

Secondly, while we are perfectly able to do the minimalist camping, in the long run we do like our creature comforts such as our camp grill, cots, large tent, and other camping tools.

Since I was looking for a car I could pay with cash, trying to find an affordable Tacoma, or 4Runner that was not totally worn out under $10k was an impossible challenge. After much research, the Highlander was the closest to hitting all the points for what I needed it to do. Cruise endless miles comfortably for awesome road trips, and occasionally, confidently trot along dirt trails. It is not Jeep-gone-bouldering, but until I have a slush-fund for that kind of endeavor the Highlander will do just great.

I found a fine example in the right spec in Houston, 109k on the clock, for $8500. After a short road trip from Austin, the car was mine. Despite being on 4 different tires, one of which was 11 years old, it rode very nicely, and the engine seemed to have no issues. I liked the first generation of Highlanders because they were they only ones that were built in Japan before the moved production to the US, during a time when Toyota production quality was particularly high. Also, they had a kind of classic truck/SUV shape that is hard to beat.

After an inspection by my friend who is mobile mechanic in Austin (Atypical Mechanic btw), it was decided that a whole bunch of stuff should probably be replaced due to natural wear and tear.

This included:

· New brakes and rotors

· Timing Belt

· Water pump and coolant

· Transmission fluid

· Power steering Fluid

· New Tires

· Wiper Blades

Long story short, that was all taken care of, which made a world of difference to how the Highlander felt. It felt supremely solid.

As for tire choice, I wanted something that could eat up miles on the road but be capable if I have to drive down a steep gravelly road. What I ended up with was the Hankook Dynapro A/T2’s which were reasonably priced at Discount Tire for what they offered. Long story short, they ride very nice, have plenty of grip for off-roading (more on that later) and only start to make noise after 80mph, a speed not legal in most places and besides, the Highlander’s brick like aesthetics makes that a “challenging” speed to maintain.

The lights were also quite dim, so it was time to replace those with fresh, maybe brighter bulbs. Coincidentally, while looking for new bulbs I also discovered that aftermarket LED’s with built in ballasts are a thing now, and it is possible to replace halogen directly to LED, so I did just That. Low beam, high beam, and fog lamps all got LED upgrades and now I have lights that are scary bright and took about half an hour of my time to install. Win/win.

Truck trend did a cool article about modifying a same generation highlander as mine and painted the wheels black as well as plasti-dipping the grill in black also. I thought that would look good with my Super white paint job. Since I didn’t want to fully commit to the black and white look in case I hated it, I bought 4 cans of black Plasti-dip and did both the grill and the wheels in the stuff. As you can see from the pictures, the result was quite pleasing.

Finally, the cherry on top was sourcing an overlanding style roof rack. I went full DIY on this one after being disappointed by what was on offer. I will write more on this later but suffice to say, it was a great moment when I figured out a solid solution.

All in all, the result, in my opinion, looks great! I had the opportunity to take if off-road while camping and it handled the loose soil and rocks with gusto. The only concern of course is the lack of underbody protection, but I am not aiming to do anything too rigorous so that hopefully should not be a problem.

In the next couple of weeks, I will post in more detail about the various things I have worked on, along with some of the gear that I have in there.