So I live a bachelor life in Dubai and I kind of need something to keep me busy. Old land cruisers seem to be less self-distructive than other possible pastimes but I think maybe I've reached a certain limit. So far I've bought and exported to the US three, a Middle East 92 RJ77, a Middle East 93 model 80 and a 98 Model 100 that actually started life in the US. But after shipping the last one, the RJ77 'Biscuit' I've been feeling a bit bored driving around in my 2000 LX470 here, and I have a real hankering for spending more time in the desert, specifically camping in the desert. The LX is a little too nice and it is my daily driver so I've been looking for something interesting, and something I can bring back to the US when it is time, not too far in the future, for me to leave Dubai.
I started looking at Model 80s that already have winches and camping gear. And I even drove all the way from Dubai to Muscat, Oman to look at a 1993 done up with roof rack, fridge, ARB bumper and good winch, manual transmission and so on. It was very nice, but for some difficult to explain reason, it did not 'call to me to buy it'. But I did make a new friend of the guy selling it, which made it worthwhile. Plus the drive from Dubai to Oman is actually very nice. I like the Model 100 just fine, but to get a local, manual transmission 98 would mean I could not import to the US until 2023 and I don't know if I will be here that long. Plus it would be fun to try something different. From my reading in this forum while working on the RJ77 I got interested in some of the other 70 series cruisers, and then I saw Honger's thread about the beautiful renovation he's done on his 1991 troopy, and his subsequent efforts to ship and register in the US. An early 1990's troopy seemed to be tailor made for camping, and for my particular situation.
The problem is that while there are a bunch of troopys for sale in Dubai, you just don't see one from 1995 or earlier (which makes it practical to import to the US). Most all the 70 series here that I have seen are only a few years old, and pretty darned expensive too. So Honger's experience was really interesting to me. He was kind enough to put me in touch with the guy who sourced his troopy, Nabahan, and when I reached out to Nabahan he responded almost instantly with this:
As I mentioned, I have not seen many early 1990's 70 series here, so I did want to look at the truck. So last weekend I did the drive to Muscat where the truck was located and had a good look at it.
The seller, Nabahan, tells me he bought the truck last December and has been working on it since. Doing some mechanical and a lot of cosmetic. Crawling around underneath I saw a fair amount of front suspension work, but everything seemed pretty solid. The engine ran ok, not great, but it got it down the road. Seemed to run better cold than hot. The most significan problem was above about 45 kph or so there was a unhappy howling from the transmission. Sounded to me like a frozen bearing spinning around. All gears in all ranges worked. The quality of the reupholstery was not what I would like but that is something I kind of like to do myself anyway. The interior is completely stripped:
I spent about an hour and a half looking over the truck and driving it a bit. His price was high--asking above 10K USD. But a lot of the not-fun work had been done, so I thought about it all the way back to Dubai last Saturday afternoon. I was interested enough to detour to a land cruiser scrapper that I know in Sharjah (one of the sister Emirates to Dubai) to look for parts and ideas. And in fact, I did see a wrecked Aussie troopy with some good, salvageable interior trim. Plenty of bull bars and so on too, if i want to go in that direction.
I got home. Had a beer or three, and slept on it. I knew I did not want to pay what he was asking, and I'm headed to the US at the end of the week, so I offered what I thought was fair, expecting him to reject it. He did initially, but I apologetically explained that it was the best I could do, and eventually he agreed, the one unknown being the duty at the Oman/UAE border, which I would be responsible for. We reached agreement yesterday and I went off to Western Union and wired 5000 AED (about 1400 USD) to him in Oman as earnest money. I'd never used Western Union before, much less in the Middle East, but it wasn't too bad. Just a lot of waiting at the exchange place in a local mall while they did things. He got the money and the plan was to ship the truck today.
This morning he shared a snapshot of the export documentation and I sent that off to my insurance company to get a policy issued. Having liability policy is a requirement for registering a vehicle in the UAE, like most places. The insurance policy was about 325 USD for a year. It takes about 5 hours to drive from Muscat to Dubai even without export formalities, so it was with some chagrin that I received this photo from Nabahan at 3:30 pm!
BTW, this reminds me that this model 75 is the heavy duty model with leaf springs all the way around. Nabahan told me that this is an ex government vehicle. The odometer reads 91K, which seems pretty unlikely to me, but anyways...
So I was a bit annoyed that the truck was not leaving Muscat earlier. The local DMV in Dubai has offices that stay open late--until 10 pm, and I was expecting the truck to get here sometime in the afternoon. It did not even reach the border until 8:30 p.m. or so. And as luck would have it, the customs guy assigned a rather high value to the truck (just above what I actually paid) so I've ended up with an extra bill for about 1000 USD in customs duties. It is just a matter of luck. Honger tells me he had to pay a lot less, but I think the fact that this truck looks pretty good cosmetically resulted in the high valuation.
As I write this, it is 11 p.m. and the truck is probably an hour or so away. I won't be able to get the inspection or do the title transfer tonight, so I'm having it delivered to the garage I use a lot in Dubai, and they will have to flatbed it over to the testing center tomorrow. If it passes I will try to register it and then I will see if the export documentation is in order.
Wish me luck!
P.S. Special thanks to Honger for his kind counsel throughout most of the above.
I started looking at Model 80s that already have winches and camping gear. And I even drove all the way from Dubai to Muscat, Oman to look at a 1993 done up with roof rack, fridge, ARB bumper and good winch, manual transmission and so on. It was very nice, but for some difficult to explain reason, it did not 'call to me to buy it'. But I did make a new friend of the guy selling it, which made it worthwhile. Plus the drive from Dubai to Oman is actually very nice. I like the Model 100 just fine, but to get a local, manual transmission 98 would mean I could not import to the US until 2023 and I don't know if I will be here that long. Plus it would be fun to try something different. From my reading in this forum while working on the RJ77 I got interested in some of the other 70 series cruisers, and then I saw Honger's thread about the beautiful renovation he's done on his 1991 troopy, and his subsequent efforts to ship and register in the US. An early 1990's troopy seemed to be tailor made for camping, and for my particular situation.
The problem is that while there are a bunch of troopys for sale in Dubai, you just don't see one from 1995 or earlier (which makes it practical to import to the US). Most all the 70 series here that I have seen are only a few years old, and pretty darned expensive too. So Honger's experience was really interesting to me. He was kind enough to put me in touch with the guy who sourced his troopy, Nabahan, and when I reached out to Nabahan he responded almost instantly with this:
As I mentioned, I have not seen many early 1990's 70 series here, so I did want to look at the truck. So last weekend I did the drive to Muscat where the truck was located and had a good look at it.
The seller, Nabahan, tells me he bought the truck last December and has been working on it since. Doing some mechanical and a lot of cosmetic. Crawling around underneath I saw a fair amount of front suspension work, but everything seemed pretty solid. The engine ran ok, not great, but it got it down the road. Seemed to run better cold than hot. The most significan problem was above about 45 kph or so there was a unhappy howling from the transmission. Sounded to me like a frozen bearing spinning around. All gears in all ranges worked. The quality of the reupholstery was not what I would like but that is something I kind of like to do myself anyway. The interior is completely stripped:
I spent about an hour and a half looking over the truck and driving it a bit. His price was high--asking above 10K USD. But a lot of the not-fun work had been done, so I thought about it all the way back to Dubai last Saturday afternoon. I was interested enough to detour to a land cruiser scrapper that I know in Sharjah (one of the sister Emirates to Dubai) to look for parts and ideas. And in fact, I did see a wrecked Aussie troopy with some good, salvageable interior trim. Plenty of bull bars and so on too, if i want to go in that direction.
I got home. Had a beer or three, and slept on it. I knew I did not want to pay what he was asking, and I'm headed to the US at the end of the week, so I offered what I thought was fair, expecting him to reject it. He did initially, but I apologetically explained that it was the best I could do, and eventually he agreed, the one unknown being the duty at the Oman/UAE border, which I would be responsible for. We reached agreement yesterday and I went off to Western Union and wired 5000 AED (about 1400 USD) to him in Oman as earnest money. I'd never used Western Union before, much less in the Middle East, but it wasn't too bad. Just a lot of waiting at the exchange place in a local mall while they did things. He got the money and the plan was to ship the truck today.
This morning he shared a snapshot of the export documentation and I sent that off to my insurance company to get a policy issued. Having liability policy is a requirement for registering a vehicle in the UAE, like most places. The insurance policy was about 325 USD for a year. It takes about 5 hours to drive from Muscat to Dubai even without export formalities, so it was with some chagrin that I received this photo from Nabahan at 3:30 pm!
BTW, this reminds me that this model 75 is the heavy duty model with leaf springs all the way around. Nabahan told me that this is an ex government vehicle. The odometer reads 91K, which seems pretty unlikely to me, but anyways...
So I was a bit annoyed that the truck was not leaving Muscat earlier. The local DMV in Dubai has offices that stay open late--until 10 pm, and I was expecting the truck to get here sometime in the afternoon. It did not even reach the border until 8:30 p.m. or so. And as luck would have it, the customs guy assigned a rather high value to the truck (just above what I actually paid) so I've ended up with an extra bill for about 1000 USD in customs duties. It is just a matter of luck. Honger tells me he had to pay a lot less, but I think the fact that this truck looks pretty good cosmetically resulted in the high valuation.
As I write this, it is 11 p.m. and the truck is probably an hour or so away. I won't be able to get the inspection or do the title transfer tonight, so I'm having it delivered to the garage I use a lot in Dubai, and they will have to flatbed it over to the testing center tomorrow. If it passes I will try to register it and then I will see if the export documentation is in order.
Wish me luck!
P.S. Special thanks to Honger for his kind counsel throughout most of the above.
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That thing looks really nice! Congrats!
