In hindsight I suppose it seems a bit strange, but when I think back on television shows my family tended to watch all together, there really weren’t all that many. But there was one, which, I think by virtue of its Sunday late morning scheduling, we all tended to watch on the little portable TV in our screened-in porch: Fight Back! with David Horowitz. I’m not exactly sure what it was about this particular show, but my family all seemed to bond over this guy who looked and sounded a bit like a number of our relatives stick it to the man as he pointed out ways that big companies were screwing everybody.
I bring this up because the Fight Back Facebook page – I was sort of surprised to see that this was a thing, since the show ran from 1976 to 1992, long before the world was saddled with Facebook – posted an old clip from a 1983 episode of Fight Back that revealed how 1981 to 1983 Toyota pickup trucks had doors that could be opened with a pencil.
Yep. A pencil. It didn’t even have to be a sharpened pencil. Just a pencil, jammed up under the door handle could push the locking mechanism lever up, unlocking the door. And Toyota’s response to this wasn’t exactly great. But before we get to the specific episode, prepare yourself with the Fight Back! theme song:
Okay, now that you’re in the mood, here’s the segment. If you’re curious about it in context of the whole episode, who am I to deny you that joy? Feel free to watch the whole thing, but I have it cued up to the relevant part:
This episode also investigates Tova 9 cactus mask wrinkle cream and the dangers of discarded power line transformers, anti-shoplifting tech, and, as you probably hoped, exposes the rip-off of “his and hers” watches. So, you know, something for everyone.
Okay, but let’s focus on the Toyota truck part: the trucks in question are the deservedly beloved early ’80s Toyota pickup trucks, the American version of the legendary third-generation Hilux trucks. Fantastic little trucks by nearly any measure; they just happened to have a maybe not-insignificant security flaw.
Also, just noting, $5998 in 1982 dollars is about $20,000 today, so that’s a reasonably priced truck, especially by modern standards. The lock design, though, while pretty conventional in most respects and not necessarily a bad design, was compromised because of how easily the door locking button actuator rod could be accessed via the door skin cutout under and behind the exterior door handle:
The access to that locking button rod meant a pencil or even an unbent paper clip, as shown on the Fight Back! segment:
…could be used to get the door open quickly and easily, with tools that you very likely had in the junk drawer of your kitchen, surrounded by soy sauce packets. This is, of course, a pretty significant problem, and on the show Horowitz noted that he had, for months, since he had first been informed of the issue by a Toyota truck owner, done multiple news segments about the issue and reached out to Toyota, who didn’t bother doing anything about the problem. In fact, according to Horowitz, Toyota accused him of making the situation worse by publicizing the issue.
Toyota did develop a shield that could be placed between the door card and the outer skin of the door to prevent the easy lock-picking from happening, and it was available from dealers, but not publicized, nor were owners notified.
Eventually, in large part due to pressure from all the attention Horowitz and other journalists were applying by making the issue known, Toyota was forced to send a letter to over 400,000 truck owners about the problem and make the lock sheilds available to any owner who wanted one. The beginning of their letter, though, sounded a bit petulant about the whole thing:
The wording makes it sound like the reporting of the vulnerability is the issue, not the fact that the doors can be opened with a freaking pencil. I mean, look at that first sentence:
“In recent TV and other news media, an unlawful method of unlocking the doors on the 1981-1983 Toyota trucks has been publicly reported.”
It sounds like the media did something unlawful to Toyota! Like everything would be fine if they just kept their damn mouths shut. This is a service bulletin type of letter; there was no need to mention the media coverage at all, just that the lock mechanism needed an extra component for security. Toyota was just being a whiny brat.
There’s a good lesson here: it’s important to push back on big companies when they’re doing something wrong or lazy or just looking to save money at the expense of the consumer. Huge companies are not your friends; you can be a big fan of the products they make, but it’s worth remembering that for all their marketing and PR and other forms of outreach, the goal isn’t to make you happier or your life better, it’s to maximize shareholder returns.
So, you know, be ready to fight back.
Time to put on my PR hat and chime in, I suppose.
This one of the biggest nightmares for a PR person, and textbook failure of a company to understand and value public relations.
In other words, someone – likely an executive, a CEO or a chief legal officer, made the following two mistakes (among many, many others): 1. Treated the reporter as an adversary or an annoyance and 2. Clearly did NOT have PR counsel in a position of power.
In this industry, in order to be effective at PR, we always demand “a seat at the table.” If no PR person gets to have direct access to the executive team, there’s a good chance no one will be a voice of reason and say something like “Do you have any idea how many people you’re harming with ____ policy?”
Of course, legal will snap back with something like “If we admit responsibility there will be a billion lawsuits” and corporate will say something like “It’s going to cost too much to fix and the news will just disappear”. That’s where it’s my responsibility to remind everyone to do the right thing.
Toyota should have known they’d be on the hook for a recall. Even if it was too late, they should had jumped on the problem properly. Acknowledge that they were late to the game, accept responsibility and get the fix out there. All of this can be done while still being legal-compliant (believe me, I have spent my career making sure I understand the ins and outs of communicating while keeping lawyers happy).
To be fair, it was the 1980’s and I feel like PR has grown up a lot since then. We still hold the response to the Tylenol crisis of 1982 the a textbook example of how to jump on top of a problem and communicate clearly. Since then, things have gotten better but not universally.
It’s telling that the letter that went to Toyota owners was signed from “Toyota Motor Sales” and not from some more over-arching corporate source/named exec.
I’ve found in my position I spend a lot of time helping others understand reporters from programs like “Fight Back” and how much you can engage without being the villain. And I always remind people that the best way to not look like the villain is to NOT ACT LIKE ONE. Any company that acts like the bad guy isn’t gonna get me for an employee.
I hear what you are saying…. but…. what about the shareholders? And the executive bonuses for next quarter?
Anything beyond next quarter is simply inconceivable/not bothered to be examined.
This is why Tesla doesn’t even have a PR department, their CEO just handles everything by getting high, then sitting around in his bedroom and Tweeting at 2am
Well it’s working
That’s the worst part.
Good point. Someone let Elon know I would be glad to take the lead on PR, as long as I have an unlimited supply of edibles and can do my work at 2 AM as I listen to an unlimited supply of Grateful Dead bootlegs.
There aren’t really any Grateful Dead “bootlegs” at all, really.
They set up special areas for anyone who wanted to record their shows.
I am aware of that. That is why there is an unlimited supply.
I don’t think Toyota was like that back then. Lord knows this is a huge problem now
*Enforced by law.
Thank the Dodge Brothers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
“This one of the biggest nightmares for a PR person, and textbook failure of a company to understand and value public relations.
In other words, someone – likely an executive, a CEO or a chief legal officer, made the following two mistakes (among many, many others): 1. Treated the reporter as an adversary or an annoyance and 2. Clearly did NOT have PR counsel in a position of power.”
Yeah. This seems like to be the first reaction now 50+ years later from a company (or organization that may or may not be a sovereign nation).
I wish I could elevate your commentary higher.
I work for a large manufacturing company that has PR folks embedded in all the facilities for this reason. They constantly remind everyone, including site leadership, not to knee-jerk respond but to the media lest they make whatever the media is asking about a bigger deal (or in one recent case, turned positive attention into a local government fraud inquiry). As an engineer, my natural response to the press is to hiss and run away, so the PR folks have a lot of work on their hands with all of us on the engineering team.
I was always told not to make any comment, just refer them to our PR department.
That’s the instruction we receive too, including the exact wording to use, since people have said stuff they shouldn’t have while giving the referral to PR (like “incident” or “accident”).
We weren’t given exact wording, just ordered to tell them that I’m not authorized to comment and all questions need to go to official communications channels (PR).
I was told to say” I do not recall” if ever questioned by authorities. Ahhh, the late 1990’s in the tech industry, cant imagine what all the AI related companies are up to now, will require extra popcorn.
“I don’t recall, I wasn’t told” has gotten me out of so many problems over the years
I’ve digitally signed off on at least 10 things this year for government busy/paper work that I always check to see if “To the best of my knowledge” is the last line. If it isn’t I have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decide if the sign off is worth the income versus my time spent to fully understand what I’m signing off on.
It’s a really small company and I have to try to balance risk/reward all the time.
Same here, small company, many of these nonsensical govt surveys or requests from customers to complete their forms so that they can fill out their nonsensical govt surveys come to me. Without the govt provided disclaimer there is no way that many of the questions can be answered with any sense of confidence, and therefore would not be answered at all.
The problem is acting like a ruler instead of a pr worm. Once the media contacted Toyota say yes we are aware of the situation and trying to keep it on the QT until we can work out a solution which we are close to but rolling it out to so many of our valuable customers without alerting car thieves. Then fix it and let customers know bring in the reporter for a news conference thank them for bringing it to your attention and giving you time to fix it. Then even the reporter is praising you for being a responsible manufacturer and you get some great free publicity.
The fact that Toyota fumbled on this one is not even up for debate. Whenever I’ve dealt with a situation like this, my first step is internal communication – make sure everyone inside the company knows what’s going on, what needs to be done, and what actions have been taken. Someone always blows things out of proportion and I’m guessing that happened here. A simple bulletin letting owners know and full disclosure would not have hurt as much as Toyota thought it would. This is a failure of a door lock, not something like a fire hazard or a Kia ignition switch. Thousands of people drive convertibles daily and don’t ever lock their doors. So yeah, they should have come right out, communicated quickly, and given a precise, realistic timeline for deploying the fix. Lol – Can you tell I’ve had to say that a few times in my career?
“Do you have any idea how many people you’re harming with ____ policy?”
Even if they know, they still don’t care. Business Ethics is an oxymoron. Profit at all costs is the only mission statement. When you ask questions like that at meetings, do they all just stare blankly for a moment and then continue as if you didn’t exist?
One thing I try to impress on many of my crisis clients is that sometimes you have to backseat the lawyers.
If your liability caps at $100,000 but the bad publicity from whatever you did is going to cost you a million in sales, comms should take the lead and you should issue that damn apology before things get even worse for you.
But then I’m agency, so I’m usually called into it after the lawyer has already had the client release some mealy-mouthed legalese deny-obfuscate bullshit that just pissed the public off worse because he was afraid they might be held liable for like 5% of what they’re gonna lose off of the boycott.
Toyota could have turned around and pointed the finger at Honda, too. I had a 1988 Accord that could be opened with they key to my mom’s ’88 Plymouth Voyager. What was crazy is that the Plymouth used a one-sided key, and the Honda used a two-sided key. But that minivan key would open the Accord no problem.
If mom’s keys weren’t available, a suitably-modified fork with the outer two tines bent back could also open the Honda, though that took a little more finesse. My younger brother had Accords from ’92 and ’93 and the fork trick worked on those, too. He used it all the time.
Went food shopping, rolled the cart up to the trunk of my 1999 Gold Dodge Stratus, opened the the trunk with my key and thought, “who the hell put folding lawn chairs in my trunk?”. So unlocked the driver door and found that someone had been smoking in my car, added a padded cushion to the shoulder strap, and replaced the 5 speed manual with an automatic. Looked around, my car was two more spaces up the row.
This doesn’t really surprise me. Cars were incredibly easy to break into and steal back in the day. That’s probably why annoying aftermarket car alarms even became a thing for a while. You don’t see those much anymore.
Maybe not in the US, but Russia and Eastern Europe still seem to love them. Check out videos of explosions in urban areas of Ukraine, or when that meteor exploded over Russia a few years ago. All you hear are six-tone alarms just like the ones that cursed every street in the ’90s.
Fight Back! was really quality television, I’m glad all the old episodes are getting put on YouTube
My ’87 Isuzu Trooper II could be opened by inserting one’s arm into the large rust hole in the passenger side door. from there you could find the unlocking mechanism rod and actuate it. This was a useful feature for a high schooler who regularly locked his keys inside.
Somewhere, someone in Toyota’s marketing just got the idea to spin their current theft woes as “design inspired by the legendary Hilux.”
I read the title as “Toyota Trucks From The ’80s Could Be Optioned With A Pencil And Toyota Was Pissed When They Got Outed On TV”.
I was somewhat amused by the thought of Toyota including a pencil in the options sheet, and it did kind of seem like the thing Toyota would do. I thought maybe it was a nice carpenter’s pencil with a Toyota logo or something.
I just couldn’t figure out what was “outed” and why Toyota would have been mad about it.
More articles should start with mood setting music.
I owned an 82 Toyota pickup and never knew about this. I also had an 87 van that after 200,000 miles the door lock and ignition were so worn out you could unlock the door, and start the car with anything that fit in the lock. That van was stolen twice!
You could do that with the old Ford Ranger up to the 2000s. My FIL had a 2006 Ranger and he locked his keys in it one day and I just unscrewed the radio antenna, lifted the door handle, stuck it through the handle opening in the door and popped the lock.
If you had a rod/pencil in your hand you could walk up to the truck and pop the door lock quicker than you could unlock it with the key.
All the letter needs to make it relevant today would be to blame Biden somehow!
well he WAS in the senate at the time, so…
So he could have stopped Toyota! I knew it!!
ThAnKs ObAmA
I sold a truck cap on Craigslist a few years ago to a guy with a ’90s Ford Ranger, and he locked his keys inside it in my driveway, necessitating a call to a mobile locksmith. The locksmith showed us exactly the same trick to open the Ranger, so apparently they have the same vulnerability.
The tactic of blaming the messenger for release of unwelcome facts is the exact same strategy routinely practiced by the White House, the DOJ, Congress, the Supreme Court, the DoD (not W), DHS, et al. The problems are not the revealed and alleged crimes, lies, and other malfeasance regularly committed by these bodies, uh uh, it’s those damn leakers. They’re the problem. After all, no one would be mad if no one knew anything, right?
The fix for government abuse is the same as for big business transgressions. In the words of a great American:
“So, you know, be ready to fight back.”
Your comment dovetails with @Sid Bridge, and I replied in a similar manner
[cackle] hehehe I used to use a very extremely particularly bent hairdo-pin (bobby pin?) to the ignition of my 1980 LWB Series 40 wagon. It was better than any key.
This reminds me of a couple of years ago when MO’s state website was leaking everybody’s SSNs and the reporter who discovered it faced criminal prosecution from the Governor who wouldn’t understand the difference between “hacking the mainframe” and “view source” if he right-clicked on it.
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2022/02/report-missouri-governors-office-responsible-for-teacher-data-leak/
It was unlawful use of the F12 key. UNLAWFUL!!
Gee VW from that time at least required a screwdriver
I read that as less pissy and more as “this letter is regarding our fix for what you saw on TV”.
Remember consumer advocacy? And customer service? Those were the days…
They will report propaganda as a matter-of-fact statement and you will like it!
Consumer reports and 60 minutes deserve some blame for the public’s loss of faith in consumer advocacy orgs in general with the shenanigans they pulled with Chevy trucks and Suzuki Samurais back in the day.
That wasn’t consumer advocacy. That was poor reporting by media. Advocacy involves actually doing something like making laws and regulations, but we’ve decided to abdicate our rights as consumers because we’ve been brainwashed into thinking that nothing should get in the way of corporate capitalism.
And Audis
I want that topshot Toyota so much! What a beauty. Now I just need to find it…and a pencil!
Yeah, I would daily the crap out of that truck.
I loved Fight Back as a kid and the theme song is still an earworm that pops in my brain from time to time. Facebook has been feeding me videos from that group too and it’s triggering lots of memories.
I used to love watching Fight Back! With David Horowitz in my youth. It always came on right after The Great Space Coaster.
OH THE DOOR LOCK, when I saw “opened with a pencil” I thought it meant carving open the side of the bed by sticking the pencil in that continuous rust line that ran the whole length of the side of the boxes just above the wheel arch and slicing it open.
The 80s version of Kia Boyz
+1 came here for this
Oh yeah
And here we see John Wick’s early days as a young hoodlum, learning the Art of the Pencil.
I don’t think I knew anyone who bothered to lock theirs, so it never really came up, but this is good to know. I think I still have one friend whose pickup might be from these years. I’ll have to see if she has the plate on hers.
I had an 84 RX7 for 2 years before I realized that the key to unlock the doors is not the same key used to start the car, and that I never got the door key from the previous owner. Only reason I locked it was the fuel pump went out on me on Sunday after the auto-parts stores were closed so I had to leave it overnight in a sketchy parking lot.
Interesting. My 82 RX7 uses the same key for all of the locks. Much better than GM cars of that time frame and 2 different keys needed.
Definitely didn’t come that way from the factory but I’ve seen a fair number of these that have had the ignition switch/lock cylinder replaced at some point so the door keys no longer match. Maybe a poor design or materials issue but I consider it a testament to how reliable those earlier naturally aspirated engines actually were despite the broader reputation rotaries hold 🙂
Yeah, no telling what happened to this car before I got my hands on it as a project. I bought 2 non-running first gen’s and made one running one. They both were fully stock and were sitting for over 10 years when my friend bought the property they were abandoned on. He at least had the title to both, but I think the only thing I scavenged from the 82 to make the 84 run was the carburetor, steering box, radio, and some interior trim pieces. Pretty much the only issue on the car with 160K on it was severe rust in the fuel tank that ruined pumps, and carburetors regularly until I installed several in-line fuel filters.
A lot of people remember when GM had two keys for one car. But less people remember how few lock combos GM actually ran in the day. I suppose it’s been long enough ago I can tell this story…
I was on a crew that was assigned traffic control for a special event. The governor was even scheduled to show up. Sure enough, here comes the big black Suburban, parked and it was left running in the middle of the road we had blocked off for the parade route. Gov gets out, security fans out, handshakes for everyone (but the guys in orange vests).
A half hour later we noticed the gov’s security guys were making a lot of commotion around the Suburban. Turns out they locked the keys in it. And it was running to keep the aircon going, of course. Having come from a respectable farm family I simply grabbed the keys to all of our Chevy work trucks. It only took a couple tries to find a winner. The security guys were happy to get in but really upset to find out how easy it was to get in…
I have a friend who had an 80’s Olds Delta 88 in high school. One day he was downtown and angle parked it on the street to go somewhere.
When he came back out, he walked up to the nearest beige Delta 88, stuck the key in the door, unlocked it, and got in. He looked around and thought “I don’t remember this pattern on the upholstery.”
But his key unlocked the door. Then his other key started it. Must be his, right?
Then he turned on the radio. All the presets were different. He stopped, and started digging in the glove box. Someone else’s documents.
He immediately turned around, parked it back where he found it, walked a couple spaces over where HIS beige Delta 88 was ACTUALLY parked on the other side of a van, and went home.
Honda did this, too, they had about 24 key patterns in the 80s. If you had one key and just walked around trying in every Honda you saw, it wouldn’t take long to unlock and start one, and serial car theives would just have a ring with several of them on it
More fun: On my ’72 GM, the ignition and doors share one key, the trunk has the second, but on my ’83 GM, the ignition is one key, the doors and trunk share the second.
Bonus, the ’83 also has a third key for the locking gas cap
Yeah we didn’t lock cars or even houses back then.
Here we go again. You are watching my life, as weirdly usual. My driver side door lock on my Toyota pickup has somehow failed (my guess is due to someone trying to break in because it gets driven less than 500 miles a year). I now have to unlock and enter via the passenger door, and it’s on my radar to get a full set of lock cylinders for it. I somehow doubt it to be possible, though. #shrug