ISIS' Favorite: The Toyota Pickup

Toyota Hilux pickups, an overseas model similar to the Toyota Tacoma, and Toyota Land Cruisers have become fixtures in videos of the ISIS campaign in Iraq, Syria and Libya, with their truck beds loaded with heavy weapons and cabs jammed with terrorists. 

ISIS propaganda videos show gunmen patrolling Syrian streets in what appear to be older and newer model white Hilux pick-ups bearing the black caliphate seal and crossing Libya in long caravans of gleaming tan Toyota Land Cruisers. When ISIS soldiers paraded through the center of Raqqa, more than two-thirds of the vehicles were the familiar white Toyotas with the black emblems. 

The Internet has gone crazy with a particularly odd conspiracy theory: somehow, Toyota has been supplying the fighters of the Islamic State with pickup trucks. Those making the claim, including the Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, point out that the Toyota trucks ISIS fighters drive in Libya, Iraq, and Syria often appear brand-new. 

Toyota has a “strict policy to not sell vehicles to potential purchasers who may use or modify them for paramilitary or terrorist activities." It is impossible for the company to track vehicles that have been stolen, or have been bought and re-sold by middlemen.

Is Toyota somehow responsible for outfitting ISIS with pickup trucks? No, of course it's not. A combination of Japanese consumer tastes, a lucrative worldwide used car market, thermodynamics, and sheer manufacturing output pretty much guarantees any organization that subsists off found, "liberated," and captured goods will standardize on white pickup trucks. The region has plenty of white pickup trucks for ISIS to acquire without ordering them new and direct from Japan.

Simply put: It's practically guaranteed that any paramilitary force in the Middle East will standardize on white Toyota pickup trucks.


The Toyota/ISIS conspiracy might be a harmless, silly rumor were jobs not at stake. Any association with a group that burns people alive and chops off heads is not conducive to good business. Through no fault of its own, Toyota's good reputation is taking a beating. The irony is, despite all the damage ISIS has done throughout the Middle East, it's ill-informed reports from the West that are causing the damage this time. 

The Most Powerful Ferrari Ever Made

With a top speed of 227 MPH, the Ferrari F12 is Ferrari’s fastest road car ever. Quicker than the hypercar LaFerrari, quicker than an Enzo. It is astonishingly fast – and not just in a straight line, either. It goes around Ferrari’s Fiorano test track quicker than either of those two as well.

Although Ferrari has been making front-engined V12 grand touring sports cars for the road for almost six decades, the car to which the new F12 owes its biggest debt is probably the 275 GTB of 1964.

Thing is, from behind the wheel, if you don’t clock the fact it has 730hp and can hit 62mph from rest in 3.1 seconds, you might be forgiven for thinking it was ‘just’ a replacement for the 599GTB. It’s that approachable, that friendly and easy to drive. It even looks elegant and, although beautiful, relatively understated with it. 

Built by Scaglietti, the F12’s monocoque underbody is made of 12 different aluminium alloys and contributes to a 20 per cent gain in torsional rigidity compared with the 599, as well as a 70kg overall saving.

The car is clothed in aluminium, too, its panels sculpted according to Ferrari’s unique ‘aerodynamics via subtraction’ philosophy. The arcing channels cut into the bonnet form the so-called Aero Bridge, diverting air from the base of the windscreen and using it to reduce drag around the wheelarches.

Flaps in the front valance open when the brakes warm up, providing cooling when needed and less drag when it isn't

Carbon-ceramic brakes and magnetorheological dampers are standard. Power comes from a 6.3-litre V12 with normal aspiration and direct injection. It produces 731hp and 509lb ft of torque, sent via a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox.

The car’s headline 731hp is the eye-catching figure – if you want more power than that, you can only really get it in production cars costing at least three times as much as the F12 – but its 509lb ft of torque is just as important. Eighty per cent of that torque is available from just 2500rpm.

As this is a Ferrari – and a V12 Ferrari at that – discussion of its value or sticker price or running costs are all but redundant. Nevertheless, as the numbers are amusing and eyebrow-raising, we’ll indulge your interest. The F12's list price of just under $240,000 is less than that of a Lamborghini Aventador and other assorted exotica, but more expensive than practically anything else. And that’s just for starters. No example will leave the factory (or the dealer) at that level. With its paint job alone costing over $15k, no example will be found for under $300,000.

The F12 can be defined  as a Supercar, not GT car – you'll note that we're inclined to make the distinction. Because although the F12 has an extremely habitable interior and decent-size boot – plus a vast fuel tank that turns its laughable economy into a usable range – this is still a car that, at heart, is dominated by its performance. And, well, look at it!