Downey Off Road

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JohnnyC

JohnnyC

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I am looking to make a collection of information of the innovators from the early land cruisering years... one of these innovators was Downey Off Road.

Maybe we can have Jim 'Downey' give us some more information and insite about the early start of 'Downey Off Road'

I still use several downey products... my favorate of which is the tail light guards with intergrated diamond plate step... love it!!

From the downey site in 2004

Welcome to America’s oldest and largest Toyota truck accessory manufacturing company. We are the designer and manufacturer of unique off road equipment for Toyota Hilux, Tacoma, Tundra Pickups, 4 Runners, Landcruisers, and Sequoias.

It all began in 1970 when parts manager Jim Sickles became a Landcruiser enthusiast and began selling Toyota Landcruiser parts and accessories out of the parts department at Downey Toyota (Toyota dealership). This quickly spread into the sale of Toyota Pickup accessories as well. The association with Downey Toyota ended in the mid 70’s when the accessory business was acquired from Downey Toyota by Jim Sickles, and the name was changed to Downey Off Road Manufacturing.
Our milestone years were 1979 when Toyota introduced the 4WD mini pickup, and 1984 when Toyota introduced the 4 Runner. The huge sales volume of these two popular vehicles hurled us into modern CAD-CAM designing systems and full in-house CNC computerized machining capabilities. These assets hurled us into a position of dominance in the Toyota accessory market.
Today while other companies only scratch the surface of the Toyota accessory market, Downey leads in every aspect of the business. This includes:

  • Bringing more 50 state street legal products to market than all other Toyota accessory companies combined.
  • Inventing Toyota performance, chassis, and suspension systems years before they become “standards of the industry”.
  • Remaining the premier “Mr. Answer Man” with accurate Toyota technical information that is virtually unavailable from any other source.
DOWNEY OFF ROAD MANUFACTURING
10001 South Pioneer Boulevard
Santa Fe Springs, California 90670-3221
PHONE 562-949-9494 FAX 562-949-5718
www.downeyoff-road.com


During the 1970’s and early 1980’s, our belief was that our catalog needed only pictures, descriptions, and part numbers---simplicity. We never included details of our designing and testing, or any other technical information for that matter. We thought most of that information might be a bit prolific, and our customers simply wouldn’t be interested.Then during the mid 1980’s, along came a northwestern competitor who printed such absurd statements, customers complained of being confused by the contradictions between their catalog and ours. The fall-out from this indicated that from now on merely telling the truth wouldn’t be good enough, we would also have to prove we were telling the truth.
Our catalogs started including names, dates, places, photos of our actual test equipment, and enough technical information to support our claims. Since the mid 1980’s, Downey’s catalog has blossomed well beyond the inclusion of techie-talkie information needed to address “contradictions”. Today we also supply the ultra high-tech information needed to walk you through the most complicated of:
•Fuel injection issues
•Engine conversion wiring and electronics selection
•Disc brake conversion trouble shooting Answers to most commonly asked questions
•Static and dynamic properties of headers, air cleaners, suspension systems, and so on

Downey website 2001: https://web.archive.org/web/20010720155832/http://downeyoff-road.com/

Downey website 2004: https://web.archive.org/web/20040131001556/http://www.downeyoff-road.com/

Downey website 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20080821230037/http://www.downeyoff-road.com/

​
 
I have a Downey catalog from 1974. In the 74 the price sheet was a heavy paper. 75 It much thinner. I got the catalog in peron. As I remember in 74 Downey was in the back of the Donwey Toyota dealership in Downey, CA.

Don't forget about Man-A-Fre. They were in Northridge, CA. I believe back then there was a second one in Idaho. Still remember who was behind the counter at that time. Once my folks left CA i didn't have a reason to visit these shops in person. Would been a costly trip. Easier to have parts shipped.
 
Living in the Past said:
I have a Downey catalog from 1974. In the 74 the price sheet was a heavy paper. 75 It much thinner. I got the catalog in peron. As I remember in 74 Downey was in the back of the Donwey Toyota dealership in Downey, CA.

Don't forget about Man-A-Fre. They were in Northridge, CA. I believe back then there was a second one in Idaho. Still remember who was behind the counter at that time. Once my folks left CA i didn't have a reason to visit these shops in person. Would been a costly trip. Easier to have parts shipped.
Click to expand...

Great information LITP

yes MAF is on my list of things to look into.... got a bit on my plate... but.... it's keeping me sane to mindnumbingly look for stuff on my spare time LOL

Early shop photos and such are cool... but... there isnt all that much on the web
 
Thank you... email sent :)
 
Got a present in the mail today!!!

Thanks Jim!!

Will be updating this thread with info... Great stuff in these catalogs... This will take a bit of reading :)

Need to get my scanner running again... Had an auto update and now it's not doing pdf's... Here is a pic however!

image.webp
 
Great stuff!!

There were a few I used to have .... Had a house fire 11 yrs ago and lost a lot of my hard copies of catalogs and literature... Very happy to see the ones I used to have .... And a ton I have never seen before :)

image.webp
 
for decades, i've kept cruiser scrapbooks and am in the process of scanning them all in before i clean house, this is a pic i had that i scanned recently...pretty sure it's from a downey catalog.

i remember the one with the red pickup and the catalog on top of it. maybe i'll stumble across those in my work. maybe not. who knows

cartoon 40 b.webp
 
nuclearlemon said:
for decades, i've kept cruiser scrapbooks and am in the process of scanning them all in before i clean house, this is a pic i had that i scanned recently...pretty sure it's from a downey catalog.

i remember the one with the red pickup and the catalog on top of it. maybe i'll stumble across those in my work. maybe not. who knows
Click to expand...

That picture is in the blue catalog that is in the center of the second picture Johnny posted just before your post. Probably in other catalogs also. My picture is a little taller and shows more at the top. I have a couple of price sheets. One dated Nov 15 1974, the other one dated Aug 1 1975.
 
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I love the cartoon of the red downey cruiser signed by 'Big Deal' I think. Are these cartoons under copywrite, I would love to have that on a t shirt too..

Gaz...

Er, sorry if this is a hijack...
 
thanks for scanning another catalog JohnnyC a blast from the past for me on P.62
about Canadian residents and a exclusive distributor husky equipment ,
i think i remember the owners name was Jeff ,he was the first person to introduce me to (Jim) downey's products :D
cool , husky equipment gave me some screaming deals on parts for my cruiser
keep the info coming it was husky equipment that gave me my first downey catalog .
if i had never seen a downey catalog i may have never fallen in love with FJ40's
 
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