FJC Mtneer asked me for some history of the Maytag. Here's my story:
Forty Two Years of the Maytag
I bought my 1967 FJ45 from the original owner in 1976. I was staying with a friend near Scio, Oregon and hauling silage for the dairy where he worked. I’d had an older FJ40 briefly, but it needed too much work for my budget. I still scanned the want ads for Landcruisers, and when I saw this one I called right away.
The owners had bought it new in Hermiston, put a Lode Liner canopy on the back, and used the truck for hunting and camping in NE Oregon. They had retired to Independence, a small Willamette Valley town not far from Scio. I went to see it and bought it right away for $1900 that I didn’t really have.
The white truck, as I called it then, became my daily driver. I drove it up and down I-5 between Portland and Eugene more times than I can remember, hauled my skiis to the edges of clearcuts in the Cascades, and made the long run out to Harney County to cruise the gravel roads around Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert.
On one of those trips, this one with a college friend who had an old Land Rover, we parked our rigs on crest of a sand dune overlooking Harney Lake, rigged some tarps off the cabs for shade, and drank beer. Back then Denzel & Nancy Ferguson, the director of the Malheur Field Station and his wife, kept a stack of Olympia beer shortcases in their garage. We’d stopped in to resupply, and Denzel dryly commented that he’d seen, “that f***ing Maytag parked on the dunes.” The name stuck.
I worked as carpenter for years, and the Maytag carried tools and lumber. We slept in the back on camping trips, moved our friends, and used the four-wheel drive during Portland’s occasional ice storms. When I started having kids, I bought a ’71 FJ55 so we’d all fit, and the Maytag sat in the driveway unless there was hauling to be done.
When I started my olive oil business in 1999 I used it for the canopy, tables, and oil to sell at the farmers market. But someone had stolen the Lode Liner (I took it off to move and left it on the street overnight), and, if it looked like rain, I had to load up in the wee hours before the market opened. I bought an old vanagon for olive oil deliveries, and the Maytag spent even more time in the driveway.
After a while it seemed like I’d start it just to drive to the shop (Willamette Boulevard Service Center has worked on it from the beginning). We were about to start some remodeling that required the full use of the driveway including the truck’s parking spot. I used to joke that I’d be buried in it, but I eventually realized the Maytag deserved an owner who’d drive it, and I reluctantly put a ‘for sale’ sign in the window.
Ads on Craigslist and Facebook got a few calls, but nobody really serious. And I wasn’t really working too hard to sell it. But I eventually stumbled onto IH8MUD, opened a thread, and found the perfect new owner. I hope he'll enjoy the Maytag for another 40 years.
