Ultra Super Hybrid

Travel Tuesday’s:  Cambodia’s very own Ultra Super Hybrid Car:  A converted Toyota Camry.

Toyota is Cambodia’s top-selling car, by far.  The Toyota Camry is the most popular of all the cars.  At just a glance a Cambodian can tell you the year, engine size, and even manufacturing location.  In Poipet, Cambodia when I saw a Camry I had to look twice.

Cambodia's Ultra Super Hybrid; a highly modified Toyota Camry

This Toyota Camry originated in Georgetown, Kentucky.  It comes with a standard 2.0 liter 4 cylinder engine with standard transmission.  The creatively added a LPG tank onto the roof!  It can run off of LPG or Gasoline at the flick of a switch.  The conversion only costs $500.  To make the care even more efficient, they reduced the weight which provides the “el camino” effect.  These ultra super hybrids are used for smuggling LPG tanks and other good back and forth to Thailand on small dirt roads.  (The suspension has been converted to make it slightly taller, but the shocks were changed to oil shocks instead of gas shocks to carry more weight.

The specious rear end of the converted Camry

Typically a Camry will get 30 mpg, however, with the reduced weight it gets about 40 mpg unloaded.  The use of LPG means the fuel costs are about 50% less.   So the smugglers make more profit on each load!

Cambodian ingenuity at its best!