SURFING OVER LAND

Curtis Cole’s Hilux Surf was engine-swapped and overland-equipped in record time

- Jered Korfhage

Curtis Cole has quite a history of driving four-door pickup trucks. While in Central America serving in the military, he spent countless hours putting a crew cab Toyota Hilux through its paces, loading it in and out of Chinook helicopters, and exploring its capabilities in the local, rugged terrain. “They were revolutionary to me at the time,” Curtis told us, and he remembers wishing he could just get his hands on one to own. Well, that chance would come soon enough.

Through a friend with a Toyota import license, Curtis was able to satiate his appetite for foreign 4x4s and he eventually procured the ’93 Hilux Surf in early 2019 after another of his vehicles met its demise at the hand of black ice. However, he didn’t intend on bringing the Surf to the 2019 Overland Adventure. Yet another one of Curtis’ rigs, a ’91 RHD four-door Hilux pickup, was more than ready for backcountry travel and fully prepared to make the journey to Overland Adventure when the truck’s turbodiesel engine destroyed its bottom end.