Where are Crumpy’s bush-bashing, river-running Hiluxes?
The hunt is on for two iconic Toyota Hiluxes that were stars of arguably the most beloved advertising campaign ever in New Zealand, Barry Crump’s 1980’s Toyota Hiluxes.
Toyota New Zealand is keen to find the red 1982 Hilux used in the first television commercial starring the unflappable bushman-poet Barry Crump and his sidekick, city slicker Lloyd “Scotty” Scott. They are also on the hunt for the yellow 1983 Hilux from the second commercial, which also featured the comedic duo.
A new marketing campaign is about to be filmed to launch the new 2021 Hilux and Toyota is looking to include one or both iconic Hilux vehicles.
Toyota New Zealand’s General Manager of Marketing, Andrew Davis, says the odds are that both Hiluxes are still going strong as they are virtually indestructible.
“We know the yellow Hilux was sold on TradeMe in 2016. Someone, somewhere will know who owns either one of these vehicles. We may have parted company with them a few decades ago, but we feel we still have an unbreakable bond with them,” he says.
The Crumpy and Scotty Hilux commercials were ground-breaking in their day and won many advertising awards. The campaign was so loved and successful, the pairing of the two characters with Hilux continued for 12 years.
Recently, the Crumpy and Scotty commercials featured in NZ On Screen’s Top 10 TV Ads from 1960 – 2020. Younger viewers who never saw the ads live on telly, can see them online at: https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/crumpy-scotty-toyota-ad
Anyone who has an idea where the red or yellow Hilux could be, is asked to contact the marketing team at Toyota New Zealand through private message to the Toyota New Zealand Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ToyotaNZ
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Lisa was born in Auckland at the start of the 1970s, living in a small campsite community on the North Shore called Browns Bay. She spent a significant part of her life with her grandparents, often hanging out at the beaches. Lisa has many happy memories from those days at Browns Bay beach, where fish were plentiful on the point and the ocean was rich in seaweed. She played in the water for hours, going home totally “sun-kissed.” “An adorable time to grow up,” Lisa tells me.
Lisa enjoyed many sports; she was a keen tennis player and netballer, playing in the top teams for her age right up until the family moved to Wellington. Lisa was fifteen years old, which unfortunately marked the end of her sporting career. Local teams were well established in Wellington, and her attention was drawn elsewhere.