Hello everyone! I'd like you to meet Big Red. Our Land Cruiser has a lot of history so I'll try to water it down to keep this brief and interesting.
My mom and dad have 6 kids [insert typical mormon family joke here] and in the early 80's they were very eager to find a vehicle that could fit all their kids and a car that would be safer on the wintery Utah roads than their wood-paneled station wagon or their plum-purple conversion van. They just couldn't find any SUV that looked good, and more importantly, fit their practical needs.
A few years later my mother saw a large "station wagon" parked outside the local City Market and immediately loved the look. She found the owner and learned that it was a Toyota and had 4wd. She was sold. After work that night, my dad was also sold. And weeks later they were proud new owners of a bright red 1984 FJ60 Land Cruiser. My older siblings immediately made the connection to Big Red chewing gum, and the nickname just stuck.
Remember those 6 kids I told you about? Well I'm the youngest. I was born soon after my parents bought the LC. So There has literally not been 1 day in my life that my family has not owned at least one Land Cruiser. Around 1988 my oldest sister turned 16, then promptly blew up her VW Rabbit (literally crashed it and it burst into flames, she and my brother could have died). So my parents decided that the best way to keep their teenage kids safe while they learned to drive would be to let them all learn to drive in Big Red. It's a perfect 1st car if you think about it. It can't go over 65 mph, you can pack all your friends in it and head to lunch, and it does great in the snow.
Here's a couple photos from the early 90s. One of my dad out hunting (circa 1991). And one of my goofy brother with his goofy hair styles haha (circa 1993).
My parents and siblings aren't really big "car" guys so we don't have many photos of Big Red. But we do have many stories of it protecting us in crashes, taking us anywhere we could imagine, never breaking down, too many laughs, weekends, and road trips to count. Each of the 6 kids in our family had at least one wreck in the car which means there's 3-5 totaled cars rusting in junk lots because of Big Red. I even totaled a Jeep YJ when he rear-ended me and cracked my tail-light!
Besides a new paint-job and tires every decade or so there wasn't much work done to the LC throughout the years. And since our hometown was only 5 miles from one end to the other, Big Red didn't rack up the miles very quickly. It remained practically 100% original (besides a new alternator) until I was about to turn 16 and it was my turn to learn to drive in Big Red. Being a silly teenager, obsessed with horsepower and rock crawlers, I convinced my parents that it was time to give Big Red a 20yr makeover (even though it only had 160,000 miles and there was literally nothing wrong with it haha). They let me drop in a Chevy small block + 700r4. They also let me lift it to fit 33's and throw an ARB bumper on there. So when I was 16 big red was looking like this:
Not bad right? What more could a 16 year old want?! You better believe I got the chicks with this bad-boy haha!
After highschool my parents said I had to buy my own car. So Big Red sat in the garage for years, with my dad occasionally driving it to work just for fun. I bought a little subaru and putted around in that for a long time until I could eventually afford a FJ Cruiser. (I know the FJ Cruiser gets a lot of hate in the LC world, but if you take a step back and look at it for what it is, what it costs, and what it's capable of, it's a great car.) I've been driving my FJC for a few years and modding it to be a very reliable daily driver/mile overlander. We love to camp in it.
Over this last winter, my dad confided in me that he no longer felt he could own Big Red. Having had polio as a child, and back problems as an adult, he could no longer get up into the car easily. And the harsh suspension hurts his back a lot on every pothole. It was a sad conversation between the two of us. Sad that he is getting older and being forced to face choices like this more and more often. And sad that we would have to sell our beloved car. I told him I would take care of selling it online for him, and that we could list it for about $10k to see if we could find any buyers at that price, and he smiled and said "no, we want to sell it to you."
I was caught off guard. My parents knew that as a senior in college with a mortgage and baby, I was in no financial state to be purchasing a car. Especially one that I just told him could probably sell for $10k! He said "Write your mom a check for what you and your wife can afford to pay, then take us out to a nice dinner, and Big Red is yours. With all the work and time and love you've put into it over the years, it SHOULD be yours."
I have REALLY great parents.
So for the first time in 33 years of owning it, my parents pulled the title out of their filing cabinet and filled their names on the seller section and my name on the 2nd owner section. It might not sound like a big deal, but it was a really special moment for all of us.
Fastforward a few months and Big Red is now my daily and the FJC is getting prepped to be sold. I have a lot of little projects planned and some major projects as well. I'll update this thread as the projects move along. Thanks for reading!
EDIT: Adding project list here. There's a lot of other minor projects but I won't list them here.
New wheels and tires
FJ 62 style mirrors
Carb-to-EFI/TBI conversion
Upgrade radiator and trans cooler (engine and tranny run too hot)
New third members with lockers and 4.56 gears
Repair play in windsheild wiper assembly
De-rusting of underbelly and rust protection
Rear storage panels with storage
Sound and vibration dampening/heat insulation coatings
Prinsu (hopefully) roofrack
Prototype Cruiser Gear rooftop tent
Prototype Cruiser Gear foxwing awning
4x4 Labs rear bumper/tire carrier
Sliders
Update the sound system. (I don't want a some crazy soundsystem, it's just that i currently only have one working speaker in the driver-side door haha)
Dual battery setup
Various electric accessores (Winch, lights, CB, etc)
My mom and dad have 6 kids [insert typical mormon family joke here] and in the early 80's they were very eager to find a vehicle that could fit all their kids and a car that would be safer on the wintery Utah roads than their wood-paneled station wagon or their plum-purple conversion van. They just couldn't find any SUV that looked good, and more importantly, fit their practical needs.
A few years later my mother saw a large "station wagon" parked outside the local City Market and immediately loved the look. She found the owner and learned that it was a Toyota and had 4wd. She was sold. After work that night, my dad was also sold. And weeks later they were proud new owners of a bright red 1984 FJ60 Land Cruiser. My older siblings immediately made the connection to Big Red chewing gum, and the nickname just stuck.
Remember those 6 kids I told you about? Well I'm the youngest. I was born soon after my parents bought the LC. So There has literally not been 1 day in my life that my family has not owned at least one Land Cruiser. Around 1988 my oldest sister turned 16, then promptly blew up her VW Rabbit (literally crashed it and it burst into flames, she and my brother could have died). So my parents decided that the best way to keep their teenage kids safe while they learned to drive would be to let them all learn to drive in Big Red. It's a perfect 1st car if you think about it. It can't go over 65 mph, you can pack all your friends in it and head to lunch, and it does great in the snow.
Here's a couple photos from the early 90s. One of my dad out hunting (circa 1991). And one of my goofy brother with his goofy hair styles haha (circa 1993).
My parents and siblings aren't really big "car" guys so we don't have many photos of Big Red. But we do have many stories of it protecting us in crashes, taking us anywhere we could imagine, never breaking down, too many laughs, weekends, and road trips to count. Each of the 6 kids in our family had at least one wreck in the car which means there's 3-5 totaled cars rusting in junk lots because of Big Red. I even totaled a Jeep YJ when he rear-ended me and cracked my tail-light!
Besides a new paint-job and tires every decade or so there wasn't much work done to the LC throughout the years. And since our hometown was only 5 miles from one end to the other, Big Red didn't rack up the miles very quickly. It remained practically 100% original (besides a new alternator) until I was about to turn 16 and it was my turn to learn to drive in Big Red. Being a silly teenager, obsessed with horsepower and rock crawlers, I convinced my parents that it was time to give Big Red a 20yr makeover (even though it only had 160,000 miles and there was literally nothing wrong with it haha). They let me drop in a Chevy small block + 700r4. They also let me lift it to fit 33's and throw an ARB bumper on there. So when I was 16 big red was looking like this:
Not bad right? What more could a 16 year old want?! You better believe I got the chicks with this bad-boy haha!
After highschool my parents said I had to buy my own car. So Big Red sat in the garage for years, with my dad occasionally driving it to work just for fun. I bought a little subaru and putted around in that for a long time until I could eventually afford a FJ Cruiser. (I know the FJ Cruiser gets a lot of hate in the LC world, but if you take a step back and look at it for what it is, what it costs, and what it's capable of, it's a great car.) I've been driving my FJC for a few years and modding it to be a very reliable daily driver/mile overlander. We love to camp in it.
Over this last winter, my dad confided in me that he no longer felt he could own Big Red. Having had polio as a child, and back problems as an adult, he could no longer get up into the car easily. And the harsh suspension hurts his back a lot on every pothole. It was a sad conversation between the two of us. Sad that he is getting older and being forced to face choices like this more and more often. And sad that we would have to sell our beloved car. I told him I would take care of selling it online for him, and that we could list it for about $10k to see if we could find any buyers at that price, and he smiled and said "no, we want to sell it to you."
I was caught off guard. My parents knew that as a senior in college with a mortgage and baby, I was in no financial state to be purchasing a car. Especially one that I just told him could probably sell for $10k! He said "Write your mom a check for what you and your wife can afford to pay, then take us out to a nice dinner, and Big Red is yours. With all the work and time and love you've put into it over the years, it SHOULD be yours."
I have REALLY great parents.
So for the first time in 33 years of owning it, my parents pulled the title out of their filing cabinet and filled their names on the seller section and my name on the 2nd owner section. It might not sound like a big deal, but it was a really special moment for all of us.
Fastforward a few months and Big Red is now my daily and the FJC is getting prepped to be sold. I have a lot of little projects planned and some major projects as well. I'll update this thread as the projects move along. Thanks for reading!
EDIT: Adding project list here. There's a lot of other minor projects but I won't list them here.
New wheels and tires
FJ 62 style mirrors
Carb-to-EFI/TBI conversion
Upgrade radiator and trans cooler (engine and tranny run too hot)
New third members with lockers and 4.56 gears
Repair play in windsheild wiper assembly
De-rusting of underbelly and rust protection
Rear storage panels with storage
Sound and vibration dampening/heat insulation coatings
Prinsu (hopefully) roofrack
Prototype Cruiser Gear rooftop tent
Prototype Cruiser Gear foxwing awning
4x4 Labs rear bumper/tire carrier
Sliders
Update the sound system. (I don't want a some crazy soundsystem, it's just that i currently only have one working speaker in the driver-side door haha)
Dual battery setup
Various electric accessores (Winch, lights, CB, etc)
Last edited: