I’ve always had a thing for Land Cruisers and the 100 series, in particular - they’ve always seemed to have a great balance of being at home and not out of place just about everywhere. Certainly capable but not obtrusive. These qualities appeal to me functionally and to my personality in a broader sense.
I’ve been looking seriously for a 100 for the past couple of months and found this 99 Cruiser locally last week. It had/has 184k miles and has been really well maintained. In fact, for a 17 year-old truck, I was really surprised by the condition (based on others I looked at locally). There is a short list of minor cosmetic things to address:
1. A new windshield (the PO didn’t replace it when a rock caused a crack out of the field of view, but it drives me crazy)
2. The front seat leather will need to be dealt with
3. The gold trim is abhorrently tacky - especially with the non-matching gold spray painting of the center caps. The PO said that it looked classy that way - ughhhh.
It has factory lockers - though they won’t engage. Thinking that the actuator is frozen from lack of use or something along those lines. This is not a big deal to me, at least not now - but will be fixed at some point.
It sounds like and drives like it is basically new. I have a great mechanic that does the stuff that I’m not comfortable with doing myself. Stopped by his shop to let him take a look and he agreed that it was in great shape for its age.
My wife and I have 3 young boys and an infant girl (all under 10) and this is a third non-DD for us. Although, I really like driving it so that is going to be tricky - ha. If I'm being honest - I think I'm in denial and my wife knows this is just a toy for me.
I initially didn’t intend to make any changes other than making the few fixes that I mentioned but I’m learning that spending time on this forum is a slippery slope and I’m having visions of roof racks and bumpers and lifts. Who knows where that will go. I am - for the moment - saying that whatever changes I make will be slow and steady. That’s what I’m telling myself.
Here is one of the photos from the PO:
And one at home - the day I bought it - on our property north of Nashville:
Also - turns out I couldn’t even make it through the weekend looking at the gold, so I pulled all of the emblems and the wheel caps and painted them with Duplicolor Mazda Graphite Metallic (thanks to the suggestions of others) and I really, really like the way it turned out. I like the color so much I’m thinking about the wheels and the trim pieces now. Ha. Like I said, a slippery slope.
I’ve been looking seriously for a 100 for the past couple of months and found this 99 Cruiser locally last week. It had/has 184k miles and has been really well maintained. In fact, for a 17 year-old truck, I was really surprised by the condition (based on others I looked at locally). There is a short list of minor cosmetic things to address:
1. A new windshield (the PO didn’t replace it when a rock caused a crack out of the field of view, but it drives me crazy)
2. The front seat leather will need to be dealt with
3. The gold trim is abhorrently tacky - especially with the non-matching gold spray painting of the center caps. The PO said that it looked classy that way - ughhhh.
It has factory lockers - though they won’t engage. Thinking that the actuator is frozen from lack of use or something along those lines. This is not a big deal to me, at least not now - but will be fixed at some point.
It sounds like and drives like it is basically new. I have a great mechanic that does the stuff that I’m not comfortable with doing myself. Stopped by his shop to let him take a look and he agreed that it was in great shape for its age.
My wife and I have 3 young boys and an infant girl (all under 10) and this is a third non-DD for us. Although, I really like driving it so that is going to be tricky - ha. If I'm being honest - I think I'm in denial and my wife knows this is just a toy for me.
I initially didn’t intend to make any changes other than making the few fixes that I mentioned but I’m learning that spending time on this forum is a slippery slope and I’m having visions of roof racks and bumpers and lifts. Who knows where that will go. I am - for the moment - saying that whatever changes I make will be slow and steady. That’s what I’m telling myself.
Here is one of the photos from the PO:
And one at home - the day I bought it - on our property north of Nashville:
Also - turns out I couldn’t even make it through the weekend looking at the gold, so I pulled all of the emblems and the wheel caps and painted them with Duplicolor Mazda Graphite Metallic (thanks to the suggestions of others) and I really, really like the way it turned out. I like the color so much I’m thinking about the wheels and the trim pieces now. Ha. Like I said, a slippery slope.
