I've seen plenty of these build threads and felt that it was about time that I tried my hand at crafting my FJ62 story.
If I had to say what the initial impetus would have been for my purchase of the rig, I would say that its because I have a family of three and needed to find a vehicle that fit the following criteria.
1. It had to be an automatic, because my 1991 Toyota pickup is a manual and my wife cannot drive it.
2. Vehicle had to be reliable. We have a 2016 Prius and a Toyota Pickup, so why not get a third Toyota?
3. It had to be rugged, strong and capable of GOING places. As an outdoorsman/Eagle Scout, I love camping, being outside and roughing it. I wanted a vehicle that could take me and my family to this nirvana.
4. It had to be iconic.
5. I have a budget
When I initially started my vehicle search, I had at one moment thought about getting a 4 door Tacoma. But these were actually way too expensive and not really that interesting ( to me). $12-16k for a 15 year old Tacoma was not my idea of good deal. I wanted something that I could replace my pickup with, but still be able to take my family and do woodworking with. Of course, it also had to be a vehicle that my wife could drive too, since she was not very happy when I bought the pickup and found out it was a manual.
For many months I scoured Craigslist. Here is a tip - Use IFTT (if this then that) and you can create a search query with Craigslist and Gmail. Whenever a new search item that you have a query for shows up, IFTT will send you an email with a link to the item. My search item was "Landcruiser" and "FJ62".
I had debated for some time on whether it made more sense to go with an 80 series, since there is all this hype around the e-lockers. Although I will eventually get lockers installed, the iconic silhouette of the 60 series blows away the 80s, 100s, and 200s series.
Back to the rig.
So I had been looking for a solid 10 months and finally was able to find one on Craigslist that hit all my checkboxes. In Northern California, I am in Marin, there are not too many old LCs that you find on CL. Most were really rusted out and were basically parts cars or the opposite would happen and all I would find were other people's project trucks that were running in the $12-20k range.
The gentleman that I purchased my LC from had it originally listed for $10k, after it sat on CL for a month, he lowered it to $9k. I called to see if he would sell for $7500. It was an affirmative. However, he was not going to be able to show it for another week. During that week some financial changes hit the family and the $7500 was no longer available for the truck. My LC was on hold due to LIFE.
Fast-forward two months and I saw the LC was still listed and was not at $9k, but listed at $8k. I called back the owner. Would he take $7k for the truck? Yes!
My wife, 7 month old son and myself loaded into the Prius and drove to Oakland, CA. I went for a test drive with then owner and fell in love with the soon to be mine Landcruiser. The dude I bought it from had no idea how to put it into 4WD. He used it as a daily commuter and had been gifted it by the heiress of the Hill Coffee company. It has 247,500 miles and some maintenance had been done.
The guy liked me and the fact that I wanted to use the LC for my family. He knocked off $1,000 without me even asking. Sold for $6,000. I was a happy camper.
This is what I bought and what it looked like on day #1.
If I had to say what the initial impetus would have been for my purchase of the rig, I would say that its because I have a family of three and needed to find a vehicle that fit the following criteria.
1. It had to be an automatic, because my 1991 Toyota pickup is a manual and my wife cannot drive it.
2. Vehicle had to be reliable. We have a 2016 Prius and a Toyota Pickup, so why not get a third Toyota?
3. It had to be rugged, strong and capable of GOING places. As an outdoorsman/Eagle Scout, I love camping, being outside and roughing it. I wanted a vehicle that could take me and my family to this nirvana.
4. It had to be iconic.
5. I have a budget
When I initially started my vehicle search, I had at one moment thought about getting a 4 door Tacoma. But these were actually way too expensive and not really that interesting ( to me). $12-16k for a 15 year old Tacoma was not my idea of good deal. I wanted something that I could replace my pickup with, but still be able to take my family and do woodworking with. Of course, it also had to be a vehicle that my wife could drive too, since she was not very happy when I bought the pickup and found out it was a manual.
For many months I scoured Craigslist. Here is a tip - Use IFTT (if this then that) and you can create a search query with Craigslist and Gmail. Whenever a new search item that you have a query for shows up, IFTT will send you an email with a link to the item. My search item was "Landcruiser" and "FJ62".
I had debated for some time on whether it made more sense to go with an 80 series, since there is all this hype around the e-lockers. Although I will eventually get lockers installed, the iconic silhouette of the 60 series blows away the 80s, 100s, and 200s series.
Back to the rig.
So I had been looking for a solid 10 months and finally was able to find one on Craigslist that hit all my checkboxes. In Northern California, I am in Marin, there are not too many old LCs that you find on CL. Most were really rusted out and were basically parts cars or the opposite would happen and all I would find were other people's project trucks that were running in the $12-20k range.
The gentleman that I purchased my LC from had it originally listed for $10k, after it sat on CL for a month, he lowered it to $9k. I called to see if he would sell for $7500. It was an affirmative. However, he was not going to be able to show it for another week. During that week some financial changes hit the family and the $7500 was no longer available for the truck. My LC was on hold due to LIFE.
Fast-forward two months and I saw the LC was still listed and was not at $9k, but listed at $8k. I called back the owner. Would he take $7k for the truck? Yes!
My wife, 7 month old son and myself loaded into the Prius and drove to Oakland, CA. I went for a test drive with then owner and fell in love with the soon to be mine Landcruiser. The dude I bought it from had no idea how to put it into 4WD. He used it as a daily commuter and had been gifted it by the heiress of the Hill Coffee company. It has 247,500 miles and some maintenance had been done.
The guy liked me and the fact that I wanted to use the LC for my family. He knocked off $1,000 without me even asking. Sold for $6,000. I was a happy camper.
This is what I bought and what it looked like on day #1.
