The DeLorean isn’t the only incredible vehicle in the trilogy. Marty also has a dream car, a black Toyota SR5 pickup, but you can’t imagine what happened to it once filming was over.
It’s hard to believe now, but Robert Zemeckis and his co-writer, Bob Gale, had a hard time selling their Back to the Future script. Disney even rejected the film because of its incestuous plot about a mother falling in love with her son. When Universal Pictures finally produced it, that plot remained, but what changed from page to page was the time travel device.
One of the most iconic cars in cinema
In the original script, the time machine was boring and looked like a refrigerator. Transforming the travel device into a sports car made “Back to the Future” and not just another sci-fi movie about time travel. The DeLorean became a star on par with Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, but it wasn’t the only impressive machine.
In the first Back to the Future movie, Marty is sitting outside with his girlfriend, Jennifer (Claudia Wells), when he sees a shiny black Toyota SR5 pickup truck drive by in the bed of another truck. Marty looks at her in amazement and promises Jennifer that one day he will take that truck to the lake. This is one of the first examples that Marty, unlike the rest of his family, is a dreamer who pursues his goals. At the end of Back to the Future, Marty pulls up in his new 1985, where his family is now successful, only to find that Toyota truck is parked in the garage. He is amazed. The future really is different after all.
The Dark Fate of the Truck in “Back to the Future III”
There are many famous cars in the history of cinema and television, but we don’t always know where they end up once filming stops. Sometimes they have a story to tell, but it’s a sad one. For the 1980s action series “Airwolf,” the famous helicopter was converted into a medical helicopter after production wrapped, only to tragically crash during a heroic flight, killing everyone on board.
The first Toyota truck from “Back to the Future” was reportedly destroyed after filming. A new one was created for the scenes in “Back to the Future II,” which was then given as a prize, only to be destroyed as well. The van from “Back to the Future III” remains, most notably seen at the end when Marty returns from 1985 and takes Jennifer for a ride in it.
They encourage him to compete with a gang in another truck, but he decides not to, altering his future. In his original timeline, he would have crashed into this truck, sending his later years into a downward spiral. “Back to the Future III” tells some incredible behind-the-scenes stories, including how Michael J. Fox nearly died during a stunt, but the story of where the truck ended up is just as amazing.
Lost Vehicle Recovery
The Back to the Future III van was tracked by Christopher Rutkowski for theAFICONATO YouTube channel. Rutkowski is a filmmaker and producer whose YouTube channel revisits famous cars in movies. He found the truck with Back to the Future fans and collectors Bill and Patrick Shea, who restored it to its original appearance.
This took a lot of work, because that truck had been on a wild ride as a Mexican drug cartel vehicle. “The truck was stolen and ended up in Mexico,” Bill says. “What are the chances that your vehicle will be stolen, end up in Mexico, be part of a drug cartel, and then you’ll get it back? Well, it must be fate, because they did get the truck back.
A restored jewel
The truck from ‘Back to the Future III’ is now in such good condition that it looks like it just rolled off the lot in 1985. It has an incredible story to tell, which could have been an interesting plot for a ‘Back to the Future IV’, where Marty turns to Doc Brown to help him travel back in time and save his dream car from drug dealers. Hopefully.
“Back to the Future III” is available to watch on Netflix.