Whenever I drive an old car, I wonder: What has this thing seen? What sort of adventures has it been on? Where has it been? While some cars have witnessed far more interesting events than others, there likely aren’t many that have seen more than this JDM 1997 Mitsubishi Fuso Canter for sale at Northeast Auto Imports. It was a TV broadcasting truck in its former life, and it’s still decked out in news channel garb.
It’s unclear exactly which region this truck serviced in its heyday but it was owned by Japan’s RSK Sanyo Broadcasting Corporation, which has dozens of TV and radio stations throughout Okayama and Kagawa. The truck is labeled “J-RSK-21,” which seems like its station truck number. It would be fun for the next owner to try tracking down where it worked. Maybe it broadcasted from the scene of some heinous crime, or perhaps it was used to report live during a bank robbery.
It doesn’t have all of its original TV broadcasting equipment left but most of the storage compartments, hookups, gauges, and switches are still there. All of the labels are in Japanese, so it’s hard to make out exactly what everything does, but the truck’s body has some big compartments with dozens of switches, plus a really cool-looking azimuth indicator—those are often used to control antennae. I also like the Road Explorer 9.0 GPS system and car phone, which are so period correct it hurts. If you want to livestream a podcast, or something equally Millennial, fitting that sort of tech would be simple enough. But even without any broadcasting equipment, it’s a super cool truck with tons of practicality and storage space.
With only 47,000 miles on the odometer, it must have been used for local TV most of its life. But even if its broadcasting days are over, there’s a lot to love about it. Powering the Mitsubishi is a honking 4.6-liter, four-cylinder, naturally aspirated diesel engine with a five-speed manual transmission and all-wheel drive. What a glorious combination of words.
But wait, there’s more. Out back, there’s a separate three-cylinder diesel generator, so you can power any equipment you want without running the big, clanging engine under the hood. There’s even a roof-mounted air-conditioning unit, so you could use this space as a little hang-out area and keep yourself cool.
The possibilities of what you can do with this truck are nearly endless, which makes it even cooler than it already is. With a $22,500 asking price, it isn’t exactly cheap, but it could be the coolest, most interesting utility vehicle on the block. If only its walls could talk…
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