How rare is a Tacoma S-Runner

How rare is Tacoma S-runner? A guy here locally is offering up his 2001 toyota tacoma S-runner v6 5speed manual transmission 2wd 5 lug version, buckets power windows locks body in great shape shape from what i can tell from the pictures he sent it but the frame is rusty and starting to rot. Need the communities opinion how rare these particular edition tacoma is to see if it worth buying and slowy find a mint frame for it to do a swap and turbo it out making it into a mini hot rot. Lol

 

They’re relatively rare, but not extremely rare.

They have rear swaybars too.

 

Yeah i noticed the rear swaybar thought it was a neat thing. Almost like the new gen s-runner.

 

Does it have a lot of miles? Non boxed frame surprises me the rot is just as bad.

 

Its a 5 lug and not that rare. The rarest thing about it is the rear 5 lug axles with a 8"diff and not 7.5".

For keeping it a street truck just install a factory SC. If u intend to make it a offroad truck dont even try.

 

It has a relatively rare VIN. Historically, that is always worth more. X Runner will have it's day. Someday. Toyota could really have made people happy and did a 4.7 like the 4Runner.

 

Eh there isnt much of a difference between a stock 5 lug and s runner. My 2003 5 lug was almost identical but i had a 2.4 vs a v6. Theres also v6 5 lug tacos out there as well. I would call a tacoma 4x4 2.4 with locking rear diff and manual front locking hubs rarer then a s runner.

But to all his own. Just my opinion

 

Thanks for the opinion guys. If I get for a steal then I will consider it

 

Yeah, pretty rare. They are not just 5 luggers. There's a handful of modifications Toyota did to them. Google will enlighten ya. If you had the frame and could do it yourself it would be worth saving the truck. If you can find them on the market they usually sell between $7000-$10000 with average miles. The production numbers are kind of a mystery. I have a 2004 S-Runner and contacted Toyota for production numbers. According to them, exact numbers were not kept. But rumor has they built 129 in 2004. Especially low that year because Toyota was phasing them out. It is kinda cool to pull into the dealership and have a bunch of employees come out and surround the truck saying they have never seen one.

 

in cali, i see them a lot. I had a 2003 tacoma 5 lug, and i can tell you that if mine had a lower valance you could not make the two apart. the suspension has a bigger sway bay to take the weight of a V6, the rear end axles has the same amount of splines as a prerunner but in a 5 lug and not 6. the center 3rd member is bigger then the 5 lug minis, interior is the same. I also see V6 5 lug tacomas that people use for work trucks that have the bigger diff and v6 like the s-runner. people who have the s-runners around here swap the from shocks for lowering coil overs. The suspension is weak compared to a prerunner, and the ball joints are the first thing to give.

 

Is it a toy or an investment? As a toy buy what you like and be willing and able to spend the money it needs. As an investment run away, you will never ever get your money back. How much does he want?

According to Yotatech, they made about 200 per month between '01 and '04. So that puts about 10K S-Runner trucks out there, this is before the X-Runners. Figure at least 1/2 of them are gone (wrecked, stolen, scrapped). So its a bit hard to find.
www.yotatech.com/how-tos/a/toyota-tacoma-s-runner-and-x-runner-trucks-that-turn-corners-419072

Nada guides (my zip code) says it's worth about $3-4K trade in if it's clean. Full retail $5800. This is consistent with KBB. There is some fudge factor there but it's a data point.
https://www.nadaguides.com/Cars/2001/Toyota/Tacoma-V6/S-Runner-X-Cab-2WD/Values
https://www.kbb.com/toyota/tacoma-x...9|true&pricetype=private-party&vehicleid=5206

Car Gurus says $8500 for private party, but it's assuming a clean car with 250K miles.

It depends on how much you like the thing. The rust only gets worse.

 

Nothing rare about them you could honestly get a single cab and hot rod that

 

It's the only one that has a V6 with a manual trans. It's the Toyota El Camino, that's why it's unique.

 

Not true, 95.5-97 single cab v6 4x4 supercharged or non supercharged was an option, and i believe they made access cab v6 manuals aswell

 

OK, I stand corrected.

So you could get one of those and swap the suspension to essentially create the same thing?

 

i would

 

uh huh.

they're not 4x4's or Prerunners. They're 5 lugs with a 6 and stick shift.

They're rare, if you can do the work and it's cheap...get it. I remember passing on rare cars for rust. Wish I had bought them all. Just the VIN tags and titles would have made a retirement fund.

 

What i meant to say is theure meh i mean a fast truck isnt cool lol

 

uh huh.

 

Sorry not a good retirement fund. Almost every car loses value immediately and may start gaining value in 30-40 years. Even then the money in the bank would be worth more. 99.99% of cars do not gain value faster than standard investments.

To make it worse, there are only a few Japanese cars that are collectable and even fewer that would live up to a retirement fund, like the Toyota 2000GT. Even that is small retirement.

A car is never an investment unless you buy "the car" and you got a smoking deal.

Now if you could find the badge for this Ferrari Dino it might worth some money or at least a good story.
https://jalopnik.com/we-solve-the-mystery-of-how-a-ferrari-ended-up-buried-i-5933077