About 20 years ago when offroading was popular in Belgium and the Netherlands a ton of rhd Defenders got imported out of the UK , the people there who still own a rhd Defender can't hardly give it away while lhd examples keep on going up in value . Same happened in Canada after years of importing rhd cruisers there that market crashed and many of the rhd cruisers got sold for pennies on the dollar .
Importing 20 year old 70 series Land Cruisers (1 Viewer)
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Sad reality is that finding used lhd VDJ76 models will be a pipe dream as wherever you travel you just don't see any of the early ones out there and even today in 2023 they aren't really being bought for personal use . For anyone dead set on ever owning one buy one now and store it until it is old enough to import .
Outside of the UN and NGO’s are VDJ76’s common among the Middle Eastern countries?
WarDamnEagle
SILVER Star
I saw one 76 series the entire 4 years I was in Saudi. It was a 2013 GRJ76. I did see more of them in Dubai but even there they are not common at all.
That’s amazing to me. I thought they were a dime-a-dozen throughout that region.
WarDamnEagle
SILVER Star
Makes sense to me that they are not common. If they want a 4 door Land Cruiser then they will buy a luxury model which today is the 300 series. Camel Herders, Farmers, etc. buy the 79 series pickups but mostly in 2 door configuration. Young kids that want a Land Cruiser will buy the SWB model, 71 Series. That leaves very little market for a relatively non luxurious, more expensive, 4 door 71 series. And don't forget, even if they want a baby Land Cruiser they will still want the luxury so they will buy the Prado. They also have Nissan Patrols over there which take up quite a bit of market share so lots of choices.
I would have bought that 76 in a heartbeat and he offered to sell it to me on the spot. I added some photos above. It was nice.
FWIW, I also saw very few Troopies. Like single digits of new ones in 4 years.
prwillard2
SILVER Star
Can confirm. Spent a full year in UAE, the only Troopies I saw were police/emergency services vehicles. Their military uses them for ambulances, and I tried like hell to get them to sell me one. However, once they're done with military service, they are crushed, or so I was told. Something about classification and military usage - even though their medical staff isn't doing a single classified thing.
Learn something new everyday.
Yes, that's a law down there: Military vehicles have to be crushed once out of service.
We have a guy here in Germany who managed to get a bunch of Ford Mud from the Saudis.
They had been crushed, too, but he refurbishes them. One of the rare occasions to get hand on a Mud at all, as also the US military doesn't sell them to private users due to road safety concerns.
Cheers Ralf
With Jeeps I can understand their concern.
I have friends here that have Ford Muds so at one point the military in the US must have sold them to the public . I remember that in Europe they all needed to be destroyed after service life .
OK, I'm an idiot - what exactly is a "Ford Mud"? Google is no help. I assumed it was slang for an old rusty Jeep?
I was wondering the same thing myself.
WarDamnEagle
SILVER Star
Let me google that for you:
M.U.T.T. (Military Utility Tactical Truck) is the acronym by which the Ford M151 became known. The M151, the final evolution of the original “jeep” (general purpose) concept, for which the Ford Motor Company won the tender in 1951.Apr 4, 2022
WarDamnEagle
SILVER Star
I speak German which helped maybe a tiny bit with Felde's comment....or I just got lucky.
OK wise guys...I was in the Army when we had these, and we never called them MUD's, so I'm not gonna take a paddlin' for this one.
My spelling skills apparently are not good enough for such complex abbreviations. Should have looked it up properly. My bad..
Cheers Ralf
When I googled “Ford Mud”, it wasn’t very helpful. Haha. No worries, I am sure if I tried to type German, my spelling will be piss poor.
To be honest I didn’t even know Ford made “Jeeps” or “M.U.T.T”
Yeah we just called them Jeeps. Don't see why you'd need any other short hand. We did call those cool Dodge pickups "CUC-V's" however (pronounced cuck-vee). Chevy Blazers were "squad cars". Not sure why.
I wonder if there really is a German language tie-in there...?
I wonder if there really is a German language tie-in there...?
