First of all I want to say Hello to all members of ih8mud and readers of this forum.
Second, I apologize for my English but this is not my native language, I do my best to minimalize number of mistakes but cannot promise
Actually I'm type of person usually called petrol-head but mostly oriented on track days cars such as Impreza STI or Mitsu Evo. And 4WD cars dedicated for offroad were not interesting for me.
Everything change in 2010 during our (with wife and 2yo daughter) rtw trip somewhere in southern Bolivia (Salar de Uyuni). Those 4 days on the rough road (if you can call it "road") in an old fzj80 ('95 if remember correctly), on the elevation above 15000ft, with huge differences of temperature (day/night) opened my eyes.
In this extremally unfriendly environment the only cars you meet are Land Cruisers.So the lesson for future was - if some days I will search for 4wd cars it will be tlc 80.
Few years later we had chance to spend 5 weeks of holiday in the States. As it was our fourth visit in this amazing country, the destination was clear - Utah the only problem was renting a car suitable for backroads around Moab.
Much cheaper was to buy fzj80 and sell it after our vacation.
Deep research on craiglist, ebay and other web sites helped me to identify 4 cars in reasonable distance (meaning for this sentence is completly different in Europe).
Finally the first one we saw and made a test drive (5miles from house of our friends) was our choice.
'97, LX450, one owner from new, clean interior, some rust, small leaks between downpipe and exhaust, left side doors replaced after small accident (In Carfax - checked deeply when doing body works here in Poland),189k miles, new tires (unfortunately not even AT), no lockers, no hitch and very open dealer to finally sell this car (on the lot for over 7months). Asking price 8,5k plus tax, paid 7200 including all taxes and plates
The only unknown was the head gasket...
We've choosen "no risk no fun" option and hit the road...
our rig first time on the driveway:
trail and gas station - natural enviroment of FZJ80
interior needs some works:
climat in IL is not friendly for cars:
Finally our vacation was better than expected so we decide to keep this car in garage of our friends until next visit
And I start thinking about some modifications...
Second, I apologize for my English but this is not my native language, I do my best to minimalize number of mistakes but cannot promise
Actually I'm type of person usually called petrol-head but mostly oriented on track days cars such as Impreza STI or Mitsu Evo. And 4WD cars dedicated for offroad were not interesting for me.
Everything change in 2010 during our (with wife and 2yo daughter) rtw trip somewhere in southern Bolivia (Salar de Uyuni). Those 4 days on the rough road (if you can call it "road") in an old fzj80 ('95 if remember correctly), on the elevation above 15000ft, with huge differences of temperature (day/night) opened my eyes.
In this extremally unfriendly environment the only cars you meet are Land Cruisers.So the lesson for future was - if some days I will search for 4wd cars it will be tlc 80.
Few years later we had chance to spend 5 weeks of holiday in the States. As it was our fourth visit in this amazing country, the destination was clear - Utah the only problem was renting a car suitable for backroads around Moab.
Much cheaper was to buy fzj80 and sell it after our vacation.
Deep research on craiglist, ebay and other web sites helped me to identify 4 cars in reasonable distance (meaning for this sentence is completly different in Europe).
Finally the first one we saw and made a test drive (5miles from house of our friends) was our choice.
'97, LX450, one owner from new, clean interior, some rust, small leaks between downpipe and exhaust, left side doors replaced after small accident (In Carfax - checked deeply when doing body works here in Poland),189k miles, new tires (unfortunately not even AT), no lockers, no hitch and very open dealer to finally sell this car (on the lot for over 7months). Asking price 8,5k plus tax, paid 7200 including all taxes and plates
The only unknown was the head gasket...
We've choosen "no risk no fun" option and hit the road...
our rig first time on the driveway:
trail and gas station - natural enviroment of FZJ80
interior needs some works:
climat in IL is not friendly for cars:
Finally our vacation was better than expected so we decide to keep this car in garage of our friends until next visit
And I start thinking about some modifications...