Applying to college in 2020 was a dreadful, tedious, and painful process. The pandemic was in full swing, I was doing my senior year of high school on Zoom, and everyone was going crazy waiting for the Rivian R1T to roll out. I had no idea what to write about for my general admission essay. In helping me decide on a topic, my guidance counselor asked me, “So what do you like to do in your free time?” I shrugged my shoulders and responded, “I don’t know, drive around aimlessly?” And then my topic was born.
If you’ve been following along my exploits as The Autopian’s weekend contributor [Editor’s Note: And youngest writer! -DT], you know that I recently sold the Land Rover that I had for a year, leaving me with my Toyota 4Runner — my first car. It’s a fantastic vehicle; I managed to put about 10,000 miles on it from February 2020 to December 2020. That’s a decent chunk of distance, especially for a 17-year-old in high school. Naturally, with that many miles came a boatload of experiences. Thus I figured, why not write about myself and my car for my college admissions essay?
The Essay
I got a little deep into Freud-like levels of crazy emotional attachment and compared the 4Runner to my various interests and personality traits. Here’s an example:
With years of dedication to the knowledge of cars, I knew my car had to possess the same level of loyalty. Therefore, my Toyota 4Runner’s most prominent character trait is that it’s my reliable sidekick. My partner in crime that I know I can always count on. Even with nearly two hundred thousand miles on the odometer, it starts right up with zero hesitation, as it did the day I bought it.
So 17 year old me decided that because I’ve liked cars since I was a toddler, I needed a 4Runner. Interesting philosophy. Here’s another good quote:
Being someone who typically sticks to making the right decisions and never placing myself in intentional dangerous situations, my car had to prioritize safety over everything. Weighing a colossal five thousand pounds, I know that if the unfortunate were to ever occur, my life would be very well protected inside my tank of a 4Runner
I like my word choice of “colossal.” That 4Runner is a tank for sure, as the 16MPG certainly reflects that.
Even though it may seem silly to me now nearly four years later, I remember being proud about the outcome of my essay. I thought it was a unique topic and reflected me in a seemingly decent manner. I mean, here I am writing about cars for The Autopian…
Toyota’s Response
So I sent my essay away to all of the colleges I applied to. I don’t know if they liked it or not. Maybe the admissions counselor at Brown University read it and was like, “I have a Lexus GX you plebian” and threw my application out.
Anyway, my guidance counselor really liked my essay. She really, really liked it. She told me to email it to Toyota corporate. I think she was hoping they’d send me a new 4Runner. I was hoping for a Land Cruiser. Instead, I got some interesting Toyota merch that included a 4Runner hat, a 4Runner bowl/mug, a weird football, a Toyota clock, and the letter you see above.
Here I am wearing my 4Runner hat in my 4Runner while wearing a Subaru Crosstrek t-shirt:
I’ve also been using the 4Runner mug/bowl/dish thing as a holder for Sharpies, pens, some gum, and a bunch of singles:
The Toyota football just sits on my desk. I tried giving it to my dog to play with but he showed no interest. He must be a Honda pup then.
The final item was a Toyota-branded desk clock with three different clocks on it. Neat, except the batteries ran out and I haven’t changed them in two years.
The letter was also very nice consisting of a lot of “thanks for being a Toyota customer,” “we love you so much,” and “plz don’t leave the Toyota trucks cult.” OK, not exactly; here are the main quotes from Toyota’s letter:
“We are glad to hear that your 2010 4Runner has traeted you well and hope it continues providing you with many more happy memories to come. We receive many emails and letters from our guests who want to let us know how much they love our vehicles, how many miles they’ve driven, or share with us the many adventures they’ve been on with their Toyota vehicles. It makes us proud to work for a company who manufacturers such great cars, trucks and SUVs.
Mr. Spiteri, we are humbled by your feedback and are appreciative of you sharing your college admissions essay. We wish you the best of luck in your application process. Keep working towards that dream of getting the 200 Series Land Cruiser.
Also, allow me to make a shoutout to Andrew Gilleland, Group Vice President and General Manager of Lexus North America for responding to my email (also thank you to Eboney Blanks for the aforementioned letter). Here’s Gilleland’s response:
That’s just cool coming from former VP of Scion (the now-dead, but still very cool brand). Although Toyota didn’t send me a 200-series Land Cruiser, I was and still am so grateful for all the cool merch. Come on over if anyone wants to figure out how to play with that football thing!
That clock is cool, assuming you want to know the time in three different zones w/o doing any math. If you ever build a kit car, you can put it in the dash… the white-on-black and font look pretty retro.
My old Volvo XC90 also gets only about 16MPG around town (which is where I drive it, mostly) so I can empathize. But, like you Rob, I feel pretty safe when I’m in it, which is some consolation, especially after watching a few hours of automotive fails on Youtube the night before for educational purposes. 😉
And they printed their reply on the good paper!
free stuff!
….cool
Nice work, Rob!
Re: the top photo: You paddleboard?!
I love the “Football” – it was clearly designed by someone who’s never thrown a football.
Maybe its not a football.
What are those ugly stickers on the front bumper?
Oversand 4×4 permits from Nantucket Island. They’ve sadly faded away and I don’t want to take them off.
That’s super cool of Toyota to respond to your letter like that! I’ve thought of sending Ford a letter about my 1966 Thunderbird, but at this point it’s such an old car that I don’t know if they’d care. They don’t even make T-birds or use any of the components in it anymore…
I feel the same way about my Tacoma. What a wonderful article. Thank you.
If you haven’t already – you should be applying for jobs there. Also are those Toyota vans or just regular ol vans? Both are great.
Regular! But Toyota vans would be cool… “Introducing the new PREVIA SIENNA Vans edition. Your shoes will last forever.”
Well played sir
Now I have an inkling of what to do when I approach Honda to donate my 2015 Fit to one of their collections when I hang up my keys in 20 years.
I had A Moment today.
I had a doctor’s appointment so I didn’t go to work on time; when I got done I piled into my ’87 Truck and motored on, stopping for gas station coffee and a fill on the way.
BTW, first fill in over a year. The Truck has been sidelined due to tank issues, exacerbated by tank mounting bolt issues. Long story short, I had to remove the bed to get the tank off. Since the bed is in desperate need of some rust repair (and now I have to procure (and learn to use) a MIG welder), it’s on sawhorses while I motor around with a homebrew wooden flatbed.
Anyway. Sitting on the flatbed, filling out the log entry. Kid comes up.
“Hey. Nice ol’ Truck.”
“Thanks.”
“You do the flatbed yourself?”
“Yeah.” I described the circumstance.
“Cool. We had to do some patches in my Nissan over there,” and I looked in the right direction. His Nissan is about 20 years younger than my truck, meaning it’s merely a teenager – maybe almost as old as the kid himself – but clearly loved and enjoyed with a surfboard sticking out the back.
“Drive it ’til it dies, man.”
“Oh yeah. You had this one long?”
“Bought it in November of 1987.” I flipped back to the first page of the logbook, to show the first entry when it had six miles on the odometer. “At this point I can’t really imagine not having it.”
“Drive it ’til it dies.”
Anyway. A young person recognized my grizzled old truck for the hardy survivor that it is, and spoke complimentarily about it. Made my day.
The kids are alright.
My exact thought when I saw the gang of teenagers spotting all the cars coming out of the Euro other week.
When I was a kid, I sent letters — and drawings — to GM because I thought I wanted to be a car designer. Some poor dude at the Tech Center was really nice and patient and always responded in an encouraging way, and my family still talks about those replies.
Count me in on the Toyota Cult…er…fan club. I’ve owned several Tacomas over the years (I think I’m at 3.5 now) and I often tell people that Toyotas run like crap longer than most cars will run. If you keep them out of the salt and keep the engines cool, they will run forever.
Agreed… had a nice V8 4runner with only ~120,000 miles that had to be sent to the scrap yard because winters in the Northeast (near the coast) destroyed the frame faster than anything I’d seen before. I still miss the way it drove with the torsen center differential full-time T-case. It was awesome (and fun) to romp around NYC in too.
Yeah. My dad had to get rid of his ’88 after around 20 years in NW Ohio winters. The rust had eaten the body and started to wreck the brake lines. He got a used ’98 to replace it, and that thing is still going. My niece still uses it, and other than the paint looking a bit rough, it still looks pretty good, too.
This is the most 4runner owner thing I have ever read, confirmed by the fog lights being on for absolutely no reason in the first pic.
I paid for them, might as well use ‘em!
Also me, absolutely always having my fog lights on when my headlights are on. Especially since i live around a lot of deer despite basically living in a suburb which i find cool.
If your fog lights are shining deer they are horribly mis-aimed and likely blinding oncoming traffic. Fog lights are supposed to shine low enough that they don’t light up the fog in your vision but do light up the road so you can see where you’re going. If they show you any part of the deer above the knees they’re not doing their job.
That said, they most likely fool you into thinking you have better vision because they brightly light the road directly in front of you. It’s the same trick aftermarket LED manufacturers have been using forever. You don’t actually want that super-bright pool of light right in front of you because if something is there it’s likely too late to do anything about it and it messes up your night vision for things further away.
Would you drive around with your rear fogs on if you had them?
Yup! I always turned them on when I had my Land Rover Discovery ????
Just trying to imagine if I tried this today:
Dear GM,
I just wanted to write to express my love for my 1968 Oldsmobile, a faithful companion to me for the last 23 years. With every turn of the key, the roar of it’s big block V8 makes me happier than you can imagine. I look forward to many more miles and many more years with my 4-4-2.
-Sid
Dear Sid,
My name is Frank. It’s my job to read all of these letters and send replies. This is the first Oldsmobile letter I’ve gotten since I took this job. I’m sure my predecessor had a few, but I can’t ask him because he fell asleep with a cigar in his mouth and now we don’t have a break room or Marshall anymore. I’m going to miss Marshall. He always had Starlight mints.
Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yes. Your Oldsmobile. I shared your letter with my immediate supervisor and received a reprimand for mentioning a dead brand in front of him. My bonus just went down by 15%, so I’m a little salty right now, but I can’t blame that on you, in spite of your inability to let go of the past and see any of the great new offerings from General Motors. Seriously, man. We have a Chevy Equinox that makes more factory horsepower than those Oldsmobiles did.
But I’m assuming you really wrote hoping for some free Oldsmobile swag. We don’t have any. The brand’s been dead for almost two decades. The best I can do is enclosed in this envelope. I’m sending you a cute little business card that turns into a sponge. It says “Safelite” on it because that’s who I got it from. I’m also including my most treasured possession, the charred remains of Marshall’s cigar. He sure picked the best cigars to smoke while immolating himself in our break room.
I do hope you continue to enjoy your Oldsmobile. I’m still driving a Chevy Trax with 180,000 miles on it and a rattle in the dashboard that not one genius in this office can figure out. It just keeps rattling and rattling way, even as my ex-wife drives around in the Toyota Highlander that I’m still paying for while giving road head to the f**king contractor who remodeled our bathroom.
Good day, sir.
Poor ol’ Frank has had a rough go of it. At least he has the advantage of being fictional.
“plz don’t leave the Toyota trucks cult” is a little too close to the truth. Toyota folks will talk about the legendary reliability of their Toyotas seemingly without understanding that other cars don’t just break all the time.
Also, your line about “safety is #1 so I bought an obese 4runner” is…… interesting. But you’re right that 5000lbs for a “midsize 4×4” is obscenely humongous. Cuz that’s heavier than a Bronco, which is fullsize.
Wait, wait, wait.
<pulls up datasheets>
Holy shit. This thing with the 4 cylinder is heavier than a Grand Cherokee with the 5.7/545RFE/QD2. It’s even heavier than the 3.0CRD! HOW?!
The curb weight of this 4runner is more like the GVWR of most actually midsize 4x4s.
The Grand Cherokee is extra impressive because a grand Cherokee is a pretty big and fat vehicle too.
4Runner does not have a 4 cylinder. Has a 4.0L V6
With the power of a 4 cylinder, economy of an 8! I’m an owner too, 2013 OG Trail Edition with 156k. I know it’s reliable, but the 4.0 is my least favorite thing about it.
It’s not great. OG trails are my favorite. Super uncommon. I get about 17MPG combined. I have to turn off the AC when highway merging, these things are SLOW as hell.
Mine actually isn’t too bad on fuel for what it is, I consistently get 20-21 this time of year. I drive mostly highway commuting to work though, and I usually stick to speed limits. My average on the dash over the last 10k miles since replacing the battery is 19.4. Prior to that it was 20.1 over about 60k miles.
As far as it being slow, yeah it can be pretty frustrating at times. My GF drives an Elantra, and she’s like “I don’t know how you can drive this thing every day”. I highly recommend one of those throttle controller devices, I have one from Hike-it that was around 150 and definitely makes a difference. It does not add any HP, however it helps to mitigate the laggy throttle response.
I also recently inadvertently turned of “ECO mode” while trying to rest my maintenance reminder light, and that seems to have made a difference as well, while not hurting economy one bit. I was sure the ECO light was just to let you know when you were driving conservatively, but I swear there’s a difference with it “off”.
Remember in the movie Summer School where the horror movie kid sent a letter to a sunglass manufacturer and got sunglasses for the entire class? That’s what this reminds me of.
Tension breaker! Had to be done!
In 1992, I had a new pair of Ray Ban sunglasses with the Olympic logo etched on the lenses. Had them in my shirt pocket, bent over and out they flew. One lens shattered. On a whim, I sent them to Bausch & Lomb with an explanation. Three weeks later, a new pair arrived in the mail along with a B&L sunglasses strap. This was back before Luxottica bought out the Ray Ban trademark, so not sure what would happen today. I thought about mailing my RX-7 back to Mazda when it developed problems just to see what they might do, but I didn’t have enough stamps.
The building I used to work in had astonishingly powerful toilets. I had only worked for the company about 2 months, and one day, I leaned over to flush the toilet. As I hit the lever, my Ray Ban sunglasses fell out of my shirt pocket, and right into the bowl.
They INSTANTLY disappeared.
I thought “I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt me.”
It’s been 18 years, and I’m still with that company. We’re in a different building now, but we still use the old building, mostly for storage. I think I’m in the clear, though.
Think Ray Ban will send me some free shades, or is it too late,
They should just for hearing your story. Hate to risk a courtesy flush on one of those toilets.
That story is not as rare as you may think. Mine were the $1 cheater magnifiers but yes returned to the ocean by way of white water turd rafting.
It is deeply weird to me that Toyota calls its customers “guests” as if my minivan is a hotel room (if so, it needs better housecleaning to keep with with 3 little kids).
Guests are temporary. A 4 Runner is forever.
Back in my day that “weird looking football” would have had a shaft with the tail fins on it, it was called a Vortex, and John Elway could have thrown it clear over the mountains.
Uncle Rico doesn’t need “a shaft with tail fins” to make it clear over the mountains.
Sweet reference. If only you could go back in time, you’d take state. No doubt in my mind.
Haha. I remember those commercials!
Elway? Bah Bradshaw and Roethlisberger both threw harder, further, and faster.
Cool. I sent them a nastygram for denying warranty claims and running out the clock on the warranty on my 2020 RAV4 and they didn’t send me anything.
I once called the 800 number on a bottle of Coke and asked where the name Mr Pibb came from. This was 1990, so there was no Google.
The rep who answered said she didn’t know, but she took my home number (I was on a payphone at my community college) and promised to research the answer and call back.
Sure enough, a week or so later, there was a message on the family answering machine detailing how the Coca-Cola company was releasing a new drink targeting younger people, so they needed a name that children could pronounce easily. Pibb was determined to be a syllable that children could easily say. Pibb didn’t mean anything so they added a Mr in front. Since it was also intended to be a competitor for Dr Pepper, the Mr and Dr titles were complimentary.
This isn’t about cars, but marketing departments can make customers for life. There’s a 2 liter of Mr Pibb in my fridge right now. There’s a Wal-Mart I don’t shop at because they don’t carry Mr Pibb.
Also, I’m a cheap old man, and Mr Pibb 2 liters are fifty cents cheaper than Coke Classic.
This is a great story!
I will admit I was a bit disappointed there wasn’t an actual Mr Pibb…
My favorite Mr. Pibb-related anecdote is when I took German in high school and learned about the eszett that looks like a capital B but is pronounced “ss”. And at the time, Mr Pibb containers had capital Bs for some reason…
In German class, we used to write funny things like Kiß my Aß.
A friend and I sent a letter to Jolly Rancher in 1970 and asked for them to consider red currant flavor candies. They said they’d consider it and sent us a giant box of their other flavors. Score!
That’s great that they responded to you, but pretty cringe that they were marketing soda to kids so young that they are unable to form words correctly.
“Also, I’m a cheap old man, and Mr Pibb 2 liters are fifty cents cheaper than Coke Classic”
Store brands are even cheaper, especially on sale. A few months ago I loaded up when Safeway Select 2 liters went on sale for $0.50 apiece.
Every reader: Great story, and you got free swag! Every automaker’s PR dept: Why do we have a 5000% increase in people sending us begging emails?
Haha I think you overestimate the readership of this site, but that would be a good problem to have for them!
Press departments live for these letters. It’s very cheap and easy press and turns loyal fans into die hards.
Yeah, and who knows, maybe the person they’re responding to will have a platform!
Good on Toyota for this.
16 year old me didn’t know that he’d ever have a platform at the time!
Totally. Its an easy win and you should for sure take the time.