Like the AK-47 assault rifle and the RPG–7 bazooka, the Toyota pickup truck has become an icon of irregular armies worldwide. When mounted with an anti-aircraft cannon or a rocket laucher on its bed, it is called a technical and technicals have helped militas wage and win war against armies equipped with mechanized divisions. There was even a conflict in 1987 called the Toyota War, in which Chad’s Toyota-equipped troops defeated Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Libyan army.

The practice is not local to Africa. In Afghanistan, it was an influx of Toyota pickups from Pakistan’s ISI spy agency which transformed the Taliban from a Kandahar militia to a force which took over most of Afghanistan with remarkable speed, defeating established mujahideen commanders with decades of experience.

This has nothing to do with good guys, bad guys or tribal affiliations and all to do with the Toyota pickup’s extreme reliability on hostile terrain. You have no doubt seen the famous Top Gear episode where a Toyota Hilux is subjected to every manner of destructive testing short of a thermonuclear explosion yet it keeps on ticking—but you may not have seen this image from 2002, where US Special Forces soldiers ride in a quad cab Toyota identical to the ones used by their Taliban foes:

But all that may be about to change.

The only clue is a few pixels of an illustration which accompanies Seymour Hersh’s latest piece for The New Yorker, where he reports on the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—or its lack thereof. It was created by the acclaimed French illustrator Guy Billout and if you lean in close, the truck you see the Taliban soldiers riding in is rather striking:

It’s not a Toyota. It’s a quad cab Dodge—a Dakota to my untrained eye, but it could be a Ram as well. This might be an inconsequential detail if the magazine in question was not The New Yorker, famous for their fact checking team. And the truck is definitely not some sort of generic placeholder pickup: it has a Dodge grille.

Cooperation between American companies and the Taliban would not be without historical precedent. Back in 1995 before they conquered Kabul and became host to Al-Qaeda, Unocal executive Marty Miller was involved in negotiations with the Taliban leadership for a natural gas pipeline which was to run from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, straight through Taliban territory. While the deal eventually fell through, Miller visited Kandahar several times and at one point even had Taliban leaders flown to Houston for Christmas, of all holidays.

Perhaps Toyota, with its humbling losses and its exit from Formula One, has gone over the hill—while Chrysler has found itself a particularly lucrative market for trucks, where demand for new vehicles is guaranteed not by rebates but by American firepower. And nobody likes to stick with a loser. Least of all the Taliban.

Photo Credit: SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images, TERENCE WHITE/AFP/Getty Images, Paula Bronstein/Getty Images, Guy Billout, EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images, U.S. Air Force

The dainty Ms. Alysson White was swinging by the Howard Springs Tavern, where she regularly waitresses, to drum up some party goers for a friends birthday party, after which she hopped into a Toyota Hilux (we actually never knew to classify the Hilux as a ute) to head off to Humpty Doo for the party. Turns out the driver was nursing a 0.147 percent blood alcohol content and crashed the ute on the way. NT News reported there may have been some hanky panky going on during the ride which would have led to driver distraction and thus the crash.

Well, Ms. White would like to refute those claims in her hilarious account below:

"I was not sucking his d*** - and it's pretty obvious that wasn't the case ... you only have to look at the mark on my chest, clearly I had my seatbelt on, so it's impossible that I'd be leaning over sucking his d*** unless he is hung like a donkey or I've got a f****** rubber neck. If it was true I'd just cop it sweet and think 'how embarassing, I got caught sucking someone's d***' - but it is not true and that's what is p****** me off. It didn't happen like that at all - he was just going too fast. I don't understand where that story has come from.

"It may have looked bad when police first arrived as my girls were hanging out all over the place. I also had a $5 note wedged between my boobs so they probably just assumed I was a sex worker or something and he'd already paid me.

"But $5 is a bit cheap for a head job.''

Both driver and passenger were taken to the hospital with minor injuries following the accident, and the driver was charged with drink driving, driving without due care, and driving without a license. Ms. White will likely be getting recruitment calls from local finishing schools. [NTNews]

[Death Spray]

Thanks to Myke Toman, Nick Pon, Zerin Dube and Speed:Sport:Life, Anna C of Bikini Racer, the Norwegian Slaabs, Saabs Gone Wild, Prison Break Racing, Team Beermer, LeMons Supreme Court Justice Lieberman, Jackson Williams, and others for their fine photographs.

Largely unchanged mechanically, the 2009 model retains the same 2.5-liter diesel engine generating 102 HP and 192 lb-ft of torque. While that might not sound like enough to power two dozen subwoofers, a DVD player, hydraulic suspension and A/C simultaneously, that's not as important for Malaysians, who actually use their trucks for tasks like hauling manure and bringing produce to market (often simultaneously if the durian fruit is anything to go by). Outside, the Hilux gets indicators integrated into the wing mirrors, a new bumper and a revised grille. While such minor changes might challenge the fragile masculinity of US market truck buyers, they should be enough to keep one of the most reliable, practical trucks ever made moving forward off showroom floors. [Toyota Malaysia via Paultan]