El Wahsh -- a 1993 GCC-spec Model 80

[John Young]

Hi all,
I've been mostly been around the Model 100 forum with a couple of projects, and I was not planning on taking on a model 80, but I was out on the balcony last week with a beer and looking at the Dubai Land Cruiser classifieds and I came across an interesting ad for a 1993 Gulf Spec truck with, get this, toyota factory winch, toyota factory rear swing-away tire carrier, lockers, and a toyota factory center console fridge and sunroof. The piece that kicked me over the edge to contact the seller was the fact that the truck is 25 years old and thus it is -possible- to import the truck to the US.

The seller, a nice family guy who is moving to the UK where the 'petrol' cost would make this thing impossible, met up with me last Thursday and this is what I saw:

Original paint; original decals too--although after 25 years in the desert they both are showing their age.

Late that night I sat on my balcony again, having promised the seller I would give him an answer in the morning. I chatted with my family about it over whatsapp. And then I thought of my older boy who is currently driving an ex-NYC taxi (not kidding--I did not have anything to do with it!) and how his college graduation is coming up, and I came upon the idea of doing up the truck for him as a graduation present.

I asked him about it as I was not sure whether he would like that--who can tell with kids these days and their crazy twistering or twapping or whatnot? Pleasantly my son was thrilled with the idea and i whataspped the seller 'I'm in."

So on Saturday we meet at the local Road Transport Authority for the official inspection and title transfer. And the truck goes directly into the shop for some initial work.

 

[baldilocks]

Awesome find. Definitely the first 80 of its sort I’ve ever seen or heard off. Were diesels not popular where you are?

I find it strange that, being a 1993, it has the newer “sombrero” type Toyota emblem on the grill. The U.S. got that in 1995. Cheers.....

 

[bicycleagent003]

That is a great find! I'd love to see some pics of the interior. I wouldn't touch the paint or the decals. First, they're unusual and very cool. Second, your teenager will probably run into another car before too long. (Not trying to jinx him, but that's what most teenagers do, including me.)
That is a really cool truck. Great find.

 

[John Young]

Thanks for your reply, BL. Your comment re the bean in the sombreo gave me pause... but I looked it up and Toyota introduced the logo in 1989 for the 50th anniversary of the company. Badging of the 80 must have been different in this region. Everything looks factory.

 

[John Young]

That is a great find! I'd love to see some pics of the interior. I wouldn't touch the paint or the decals. First, they're unusual and very cool. Second, your teenager will probably run into another car before too long. (Not trying to jinx him, but that's what most teenagers do, including me.)
That is a really cool truck. Great find.

Hi BG, the the paint, that is what the current owner suggested. The truck was bought originally by a Brit who had it most of its life, then the current owner, a friend of his, bought it off him. I'm going to take a close look at the paint and have my garage look too and see if it can be buffed out and made more attractive. I like keeping things original but at the same time I'd like to give my son a really nice looking truck. Maybe it is time. I will post more pictures and solicit comments after I take the title and solicit comments. The thing is I really don't like the Middle East decals on Land Cruisers. I just don't. And these are crazed. Another option is to remove just the decals and keep the paint.

Re the inside, it needs some work as you might expect. The boot around the shifter for example needs to be replaced. It is dark blue. The owner says that the carpet is original and it looks fitted like factory but it is an odd low shag like you people had in their houses in the 70s. It looks pretty good and won't be changed unless I find something really wrong with it. The trim is also dark blue. I did not take any photos of the interior but will post them as I take them. The back seats are the original leather (a high-end option here at the time) but crazed. A bit of Lexol might bring them back. The fronts have been recovered and look ok, but I might replace them with some local camel leather (not kidding) just to make it an increment more unusual.

 

[Ghostrider I]

Awesome find. Definitely the first 80 of its sort I’ve ever seen or heard off. Were diesels not popular where you are?

I find it strange that, being a 1993, it has the newer “sombrero” type Toyota emblem on the grill. The U.S. got that in 1995. Cheers.....

Isn't gas dirt cheap in that part of the world?

 

[Ghostrider I]

C'mon lets see some interior pictures!! Is it a manual or a slushbox?

 

[baldilocks]

Isn't gas dirt cheap in that part of the world?

If gas is cheap, diesel would be cheaper supposedly.

 

[John Young]

Morning! Re gas prices, the UAE government just announced a gas price drop for November. Regular gas is now 1.85 AED /L. That's .50 USD /L and there are 3.785 liters per US gallon, so that works out to be 1.89 USD / US gallon.

The average price of gas in Virginia right now is 2.27 USD, so use it is about 40 cents cheaper here than in Virginia. Which is material, but not earth-shattering.

Some of the other countries in the region are different according to this site: GlobalPetrolPrices.com
Bahrain: 1.61 USD per gallon
Saudi Arabia: 91 cents per gallon
Qatar: 1.68 USD per gallon
(the UAE figure they give is 2.07 USD. Not sure why it is different than what I calculate)

If you want to talk about extremes, consider Malaysia at 1.97 USD / gallon vs Singapore at 5.80 USD / gallon. Literally right across a causeway. There is such an economic incentive that they actually have rules about how full your gas tank needs to be when you drive from Singapore to Malaysia!

If you are departing from Singapore in a Singapore-registered motor vehicle, the vehicle’s motor fuel supply tank must be at least three-quarter tank full.

For petrol-CNG vehicles, drivers should ensure both the petrol and CNG fuel tanks are at least three-quarter full.

Please note that the three-quarter tank rule does not apply to Singapore-registered motor vehicles that run purely on diesel.

Those who do not meet the rule may be prosecuted in court and fined up to S$500. The driver must turn back to Singapore to fill the vehicle’s fuel supply tank to at least three-quarter full before the vehicle is allowed to leave Singapore.

If the vehicle’s fuel gauge is tampered, the driver will be charged in court for illegal alteration of the fuel-measuring equipment. More information on customs offences is available here.
​

 

[ExpoGeorgia]

Great find John and I love the factory decals! Do you mind sharing the average prices of a similar 80 series where you are located?

 

[John Young]

Average prices for Model 80s is difficult--there are not many on the market. If you look at dubizzle.com (the classified site) today there is only the one ad for the truck I am buying (model 80) and 39 ads for model 100's.

 

[John Young]

Today at 9am I met the seller at the Road and Transport Authority's testing station inside a shopping center parking lot for the pre-title transfer test. Coincidentally, he drove up just as I was arriving:

And here is the truck in the testing center:

The truck passed the inspection with no issues and we went upstairs for the title transfer, which took only about 20 minutes, including the time we were waiting for our number to come up. And I became the owner of El Wahsh. I had asked the seller if he didn't mind showing me a couple of the parts places he had talked about, and he had the time so we headed North, past the Burj Kalifa:

It's the tall building between the rear-view and the streetlight pole. Wahsh's steering wheel is pretty badly worn and I had the vague idea of buying another one at the wreckers and covering it with fresh leather. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the industrial area in Sharjah where there were a couple of Land Cruiser-specific wreckers next to each other:

Here's a link to a map for the location:

Google Maps

More later

 

[John Young]

Hi all, El Wahsh is moving along. I ultimately decided to ditch the OEM decals which neither my son nor I liked. The truck is in the middle of a repaint as can be seen here:

Note the factory winch!

Not a speck of rust near as I can tell.

 

[inkpot]

Repaint is the best solution for removing decals. I pulled the after market decals from my white 97 and it still left noticeable shadows in the paint. My solution was to spend lots of time driving thru the bush in Arizona deserts. Now my paint is well blended.

I was under the impression that even the 25+ year old imports had to meet US federal safety and emission requirements before being approved?

 

[John Young]

[QUOTE="inkpot, post:
I was under the impression that even the 25+ year old imports had to meet US federal safety and emission requirements before being approved?[/QUOTE]

The shipping company indicated it would work, and they have quite a bit of experience with this. Of course you never really know until you try....

 

[John Young]

So the wheels are back, repainted and with new Geolander tires as well! Slightly oversized. I went with 285/75 R16's

 

[John Young]

The repaint and other repairs are rolling along. Here are a few photos:

Also went to the salvage yard today for some trim and nicer turn indicator fixtures.

And finally a mystery:

This looks to be in the rear hatch, but I can't find any mention of a knob in any of the manuals. Does anyone know anything about this? I'd think it would be a standard size. It's busted as you can see. If anyone knows the size or what I can use as a substitute that would be stellar!

 

[Ghostrider I]

The repaint and other repairs are rolling along. Here are a few photos:

Also went to the salvage yard today for some trim and nicer turn indicator fixtures.

And finally a mystery:

This looks to be in the rear hatch, but I can't find any mention of a knob in any of the manuals. Does anyone know anything about this? I'd think it would be a standard size. It's busted as you can see. If anyone knows the size or what I can use as a substitute that would be stellar!

When I had my 60, it was a standard golf tee looking knob. My European spec'd 80 doesn't have that.

 

[John Young]

We are getting close, oh so close, to getting El Wahsh out of the garage and able to drive around for a while to shake it out.

Lots of little problems. For example, the truck came with a factory winch, but not the factory control wand for the winch. I found a Toyota control wand as discussed here. But when it was plugged into El Wahsh it did not work. Fortunately I had acquired another toyota factory winch with the intention of putting it on my American spec 1998, so I had a spare at hand to give to my mechanics.

The cleaner one came from the salvage yard in Sharja. When they told me that the winch was not working I suspected it was an electrical problem. The winch itself had not been used much since the truck was new. The first owner was a British expat, and the second was also someone who commuted in it and used it for desert fun. Anyhoo, PAB Auto Maintenance fooled with it for a while can came back with the message that they had fixed El Wahsh's original winch. All this taking a couple of weeks, which is fine.

That taken care of, it was down to a bunch of dashboard issues, including busted switches.

Ugly, right?

So back to the salvage yard for a bunch of less disgusting switch gear, which I cleaned up and PAB Auto has now installed. At this point I have become anxious to drive my truck. I actually sold my gulf spec 2001 because shuffling 3 land cruisers around Dubai is a bit excessive, even for me, and I want to play with my new toy. I had intended to install myself a new 2-DIN JVC unit which I had bought in the US, but at the last moment I decided to let the guys do it for me and also install the camera and more importantly the wiring to the camera.

When the guys got the head unit in they discovered that two of the four speakers were dead. Not too surprised when I took a look at the butchery done in the past:

So night before last I ran off to Dragon Mart and got the best couple of speakers I could find that will fit the space in the front doors. Basic Kenwoods sold for 25 USD per pair on Amazon, just to get El Wahsh up and running. Today I will go back to the salvage yard and see if I can get the rear speakers.

So wish me luck, I might actually be driving El Wahsh in the next few days!

 

[FJP971]

The repaint and other repairs are rolling along. Here are a few photos:

And finally a mystery:

This looks to be in the rear hatch, but I can't find any mention of a knob in any of the manuals. Does anyone know anything about this? I'd think it would be a standard size. It's busted as you can see. If anyone knows the size or what I can use as a substitute that would be stellar!

That knob is the lock/unlock knob for the rear hatch. It allows you to unlock and open the hatch from inside if needed.