Junkyard Find: 1989 Toyota Land Cruiser
Well, here’s a truck you almost never see in junkyards. In Colorado, FJ60/62s have been considered sufficiently desirable that even beat ones mostly get snapped up at pre-Crusher auctions. Perhaps that’s all changing now, what with gas prices knocking down the prices of newer, more modern/less “truck-y” SUVs.
This one’s a bit battered, but it appears to be free of the tooth marks of the Rust Monster.
The good old pushrod F engine! This would make an interesting swap into, say, a mid-70s Corona wagon… but that will never happen. Next stop, Chinese steel smelter.
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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Here in Vegas, they crushed dozens of FJ60/62 under Cash for Clunkers. They all passed through the junkyards for 30 days or so, then were gone. Very capable beast, but at 12mpg, they were easy crusher fodder.
Very tough trucks, but if you don't keep up on the care and feeding they can get costly very quick. I was looking for a nice FJ62 recently, but good examples were very costly to the point it made more sense to go with an fzj80 model. Last of the straight sixes, full floater axle, and a rare for the later models cloth interior with manual seats. Plus it will tow a lot better than the old 62s. I am inclined to agree with the above poster that this was a project that got killed by the parts cost...everything on these things is 250 bucks it seems like. Still though I would have thought someone would snatch it up.