I think any old vehicle is popular down in Mexico or the Caribbean. I see a ton of them all of the time. I used to teach automotive (night school), post secondary as part of a government/state outreach program to employ or re-employ adults. It was probably 50% filled with minorities (mostly Dominicans) and one guy (he was Dominican) said the main reason why he was taking the course was so he could buy, fix up and transport vehicles to the Dominican. He said it was profitable. His plan was to ship them...boat loads of them. This guy was already a somewhat successful business man - and he paying for the course himself (not the state) - he owned a pretty busy barber shop. Ran into him a bunch of years later...he decided to take what he learned and continue into air craft mechanic/aviation school. He was a technician at a local airport at that point. Asked him about the car thing, didn’t sound like he was doing it. Asked him about his barber shop, he sold it. I guess he liked working on airplanes more than people‘s hair?
But I see the old Toyota’s all over the place down there...dominican, Mexico, Aruba, Curaçao, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Bahamas. And as a tech myself, I can’t help but notice (and listen for) all the stuff that is wrong with these cars. My lord!! When you’re in a taxi down there, good luck! They drive like crazy and the wheels are literally ready to fall off. I said to one guy in curaçao...hey, you know you have a bad wheel bearing? Like, really bad? And he said, yeah my mechanic said that too...as we drove 90 mph down a dirt road, lined with palm trees two inches from the side of the road, in the pouring rain...on bald tires...with one windshield wiper working...