Vehicles in St. Martin

[marcfj60]

We just got back from a vacation with Danise's family that included a cruise stop in Sint Maarten/Saint Martin. I saw some interesting vehicles we don't get in the US and snapped some photos. I was rather disappointed that I didn't see any Land Cruisers up close, just what I think was a 70-series from a distance. I think fuel economy is the more critical than off-road ability on this island. It's not very big and most roads were paved except for the one leading to the trailhead where we did a "jungle hike". That's were we rode on the Hyundai 'pickup'. It had a diesel engine. I wish i had the time to bug the tour operator to let me look under the hood but that was not part of the tour schedule. The third picture shows part of what I think was a Toyota Hilux but I wasn't sure.

 

[marcfj60]

There were plenty of Toyota and Hyundai busses like these:

 

[marcfj60]

And here are some random other shots I got.

 

[gr8wrk]

The Toyota and Hyundai buses are really common in the third world, all of it. The Toyota buses carry all the small village to village traffic in Mexico, for instance. Pretty much the same in Thailand. Despite hard use they seem to last pretty much forever.

The blue truck is a Hilux. Front end, especially head lights, are different than a Tacoma. Good spot.