Today’s Montero has a Delica diesel under its hood and 4WD for climbing its namesake mountains. Could that, and a bit of funky old patina, make its price perfectly palatable?

Aside from some from Jalon P Niklaus, yesterday’s didn’t seem to engender much enthusiasm at its $2,600 asking. Nope, fully 67 percent of you called it out in a Crack Pipe loss, with any of you averring that even in a non-injured state, you wouldn’t give it garage space.

We like garages. We like driveways too. They are great places to wrench, wash, and just hang out with whatever prized possession you might have. What we really like, however, is getting out of those garages and driveways and out on the road or maybe even a backwoods trail.

If you wanted to do either, or both of those things, you might want to do so in this . This will allow you to go places both in style and, with its adopted Delica diesel, with reasonable frugality.

The engine is a 4D56, a 2.5-litre four out of one of the little cab-over vans. That’s a fairly common swap for these trucks and slots in with little fanfare.

The engine is said to rock a new turbo with bigger impellers as well as an intercooler that has been relocated from the top of the mill to upfront. Behind that sits a rebuilt manual transmission of undisclosed gear count. The ad claims all of the conversion work to have been professionally done and with “great care and respect for the truck,” whatever that means.

The engine bay wasn’t the only place to see some attention on this Montero. The leaf springs have been replaced, and are accompanied by Bilstein shocks. New disc brakes from a later truck aid in keeping things under control while high-county diffs assist when off the beaten path.

The exterior of this two-door trucklet looks to be in pretty decent shape, however, the seller does denote a few boogers. There’s some corruption around the remarkably flat windscreen and the grey paint it seems is just a suggestion. Apparently the factory painted it red and the current coat is just a cheap job that, according to the seller, could be pressure-washed off. Other issues noted in the ad include the need for a new thermostat, and a whiny rear-end.

Those all might prove to be moot once you jump inside and marvel at both the leather upholstered seats and the dash-top gauge set that houses a compass and a meter for the angle of the dangle. A diesel instrument cluster has also been added here to keep things honest. Even more gauges replace the radio downtown in the center stack. Everything looks appreciably tidy if just a little rough around the edges.

The Delica engine is claimed to have 90K on the clock, while the truck itself rocks 200K. The seller says that he has it registered in Montana (how apropos) under the auspices of a limited liability corporation, and shills in his ad for a company that could set you up in a similar fashion.

That all sounds too complicated for me so we’ll stick to cold, hard cash. In that case, the asking for this diesel Montero is $5,250 and for that, you will get one of the funkier off-roaders out there. Yes, it does need some work here and there, and sure, it’s going to be a little harder to find Delica diesel parts than for the original mill, but so what? With the Internet pretty much anybody can get anything these days.

The question of the moment is about that $5,250 asking, though. Do you think this diesel Montero is worth that much? Or, is that just a mountain too high for it to climb?

You decide!

Los Angeles, CA , or go if the ad disappears.

H/T to RevUnlimiter for the hookup!

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