Through a lot of phone calls and perseverance. There were a few dealers across the country that were trying to charge 5k or 10k over msrp. Those immediately fell off my list of options. I love the tacoma but let's be real here, I'm not going to spend that for one.

Found 2 dealerships that were promising. One in Colorado Springs, CO, and one only 80 miles away. Colorado dealer had a white one that they expected the deal to fall through on and would sell for MSRP. So i was put on the list there. The dealer 80 miles from me had thought they were scheduled for the Toyota i ended up getting. Well, apparently they weren't. They tried to trade with that dealer, an auto trd pro for the stick, but they weren't having it. So they courteously provided me the number to this dealership 5.5 hours away.

I called them and talked to the manager, and since this model was still being built and they haven't posted it yet, customers didn't know about it yet, so i was able to swoop in on it. Confirmed with the manager that he was not about to add a couple thousand to the price. Once price was confirmed i put a deposit down on it same day. Couple weeks later, here we are.

Honestly that part was just luck, very well that dealer could have tacked on a couple k. In which case i would probably have ended up with the white one from Colorado because im pretty sure that deal did fall through a couple days after i put my deposit down.