Junkyard Find: 1971 Toyota Land Cruiser

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

While the regular junkyard visitor might run across the occasional FJ60 Land Cruiser in a cheap self-service yard, especially here in 4WD-centric Colorado, there are some Toyota trucks you just don’t see in such junkyards. One is the 4Runner (I’ve found exactly one so far) and another is the FJ40 Land Cruiser. But wait— look what I just found!

I shot this truck in the yard’s “not ready for customers to be pickin’ parts off yet” lot a couple of months back, and I assumed that it would be sold as a unit to a Toyota-specialist yard or collector instead of getting put out among the ’93 Tercels and Daewoo Lanoses. It looked pretty rough, but still had plenty of good stuff.

By the time I found it in the yard, it had been picked over pretty well.

Still, there’s always something worth pulling if you’re restoring a much-sought-after FJ40.

Like the glovebox door, for example, or what Land Cruiser folks call “the pocket.”


Holds seven in foam-seat comfort!










Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Katherin1 Katherin1 on Oct 08, 2013

    Great writeup.

  • Katherin1 Katherin1 on Oct 08, 2013

    Great writeup. We like FJ60 Land Cruiser . It has good quality driving, interior and exteriors looks good. It is really good stuff. I have driven cruiser . Although i have faced some engine problem and fixed it Auto Repair Tempe . We are fan of Toyota.

  • Tassos Isn't this just a Golf Wagon with better styling and interior?I still cannot get used to the fact how worthless the $ has become compared to even 8 years ago, when I was able to buy far superior and more powerful cars than this little POS for.... 1/3rd less, both from a dealer, as good as new, and with free warranties. Oh, and they were not 15 year olds like this geezer, but 8 and 9 year olds instead.
  • ToolGuy Will it work in a Tesla?
  • ToolGuy No hybrid? No EV? What year is this? lolI kid -- of course there is an electric version.
  • Tassos No, this is for sure NOT my favorite Caddy. Very few Caddys with big fins work out as designs.FOr interiors, I much prefer the Caddys and other US luxury cars from the 30s, Packards etc. After the war, they ditched the generous wood veneer (without which no proper luxury car) for either nothing or the worse than nothing fake wood.For exterior, I like many Caddys from the 60s and early 70s, when the fins slowly diminished and finally disappearedEven the current " Art and Science" angular styling is quite good and has lasted a quarter century (from the first CTS). They even look better than most Bangled BMWs and even some Mercs.- from outside only.
  • ToolGuy Good for them.
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