For Sale 1958
- Thread starter bugsnbikes
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Do you have any idea why their bodies look different than ours? My 1958 fj25 looks like all the other fst fj25's. This one appears to look custom made or something. This ones vin# is 8-FJ25-6659. Mine is 8-FJ25-5501 They are close enough in production that I would think they should look the same.
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if I had to guess, And knowing Toyota.... they likely had a bunch of supposed 1958 stuff that was made a bunch earlier as prototypes for testing. Toyota is sorta famous for rolling around custom prototypes for years before actually putting them into official 1958 production. IIRc the Toyota’s that were crawling all over Mount Fuji were likely in testing for at least a year or three in “testing”.
Also the boxy squared rear corners from an engineering and production standpoint would have resulted in more stamping/metal fatigue issues vs the rounded corners of later models which was all probably “learned” in those earliest test runs. remember Toyota was inventing all the processes by which these were mass produced - So i wouldnt be surprised if Toyota had dozens of 1953-on made prototypes in various iterations of screwballness.
For example the 1fz was in development in mid 1986 in Carb form and Toyota still hadn’t even released the 3fe into the 62series yet....and it finally showed up in the U.S. 7years later. if you examine the Toyota engineering developments timelines and patents you can see that the engineers were penning ideas of an engine for which machining/forging processes hadn’t even been developed yet.
There’s probably some grandkid of an engineer that has a 1952 Fj10 sitting in his garage and has no idea that it’s not a 1958 and family stories recalling the summer that grandpa got almost to the top of mt. Fuji
Also the boxy squared rear corners from an engineering and production standpoint would have resulted in more stamping/metal fatigue issues vs the rounded corners of later models which was all probably “learned” in those earliest test runs. remember Toyota was inventing all the processes by which these were mass produced - So i wouldnt be surprised if Toyota had dozens of 1953-on made prototypes in various iterations of screwballness.
For example the 1fz was in development in mid 1986 in Carb form and Toyota still hadn’t even released the 3fe into the 62series yet....and it finally showed up in the U.S. 7years later. if you examine the Toyota engineering developments timelines and patents you can see that the engineers were penning ideas of an engine for which machining/forging processes hadn’t even been developed yet.
There’s probably some grandkid of an engineer that has a 1952 Fj10 sitting in his garage and has no idea that it’s not a 1958 and family stories recalling the summer that grandpa got almost to the top of mt. Fuji
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Not an expert but I remember I read somewhere that Australia got cab-chassis and had the rear end locally made.
whitey45
SILVER Star
Yes they were cab chassis and local coach builders built the rear body section. Most 45 pickups were cab chassis all the way to the end of production, hence the rarity of the styleside bed that the us got. Aussie trays were big business back in the day!
Living in the Past
SILVER Star
whitey45
SILVER Star
Yes, I was referring to 45, 47 series pickups pre 84.
One of my favourite pictures, the 109" wheelbase fj45 with dealer chassis extension and wooden tray
