I have always wanted to get into heavy off roading, and then when I moved from San Diego out to the desert, it seemed like I was going to get my chance. Problem was I had bought a non-4X4 Titan brand new and became a single dad, so there was no way I could afford to get big into off roading at the time.
Fast forward a couple years, and I had a live in girlfriend, got promoted, and was finding myself taking my 2WD Titan out on the desert trails and getting it a little scraped up. Then I saw an ad for a 91 4Runner for $1k. Since I'm fairly mechanically inclined, I decided to go for it so I could have an beater vehicle to go out in the desert with. One thing led to another, and another, and another, and eventually I was getting so mad that I quit working on it.
At that point, I was on the local Navy base (China Lake) where I work and drove past the "Lemon Lot" where people put stuff for sale, and there was this cool looking Toyota. It wasn't in the best of shape, but looked like a perfect vehicle for the desert. Not to mention the fact that it had 272K miles on it and still ran great. And this one was also only $1K. So I took it out for a test drive, dropped in 4HI and 4LO and everything worked just as it should have. I did all my research online and found out just how reliable and incredible these things were, so after a quick look over by a couple old timer mechanics that I know, I bought it.
Since then, it's been incredible. I love being able to wrench on it myself, do bodywork, and basically anything I want to it without worrying that I'm going to completely screw it up like I did the 4Runner.
And now I'm on the lookout for any really great deals on an old 40 as well. Someday I hope to have one of each of the older LC's.