My obsession with the Toyota Land Cruiser started when my friend had an
FJ40 and we used to take it up in the mountains checking out anywhere
we could go and going shooting and helping people in lesser vehicles get
out of whatever situation they had got into. My friend moved down south
for a while and needed to leave his Cruiser at my house. He wanted me to
start it once in a while and drive it. No problem! I really liked the open feeling
with the top off , and its the only time I felt sorry for anyone who opened
their door on me in a parking lot. God help the tinfoil door that bangs into
this. I noticed how heavy duty everything was on this truck, and how simple
and purpose built it was. No fluff here. It felt like a tank. Like it would take a
semi truck to hit you to do some damage. Well I really wanted my own after
that six months of bliss. My friend took the 40 and moved to Wyoming.

Luckily he is a good friend and saw that I was "bit by the bug" and he found
me a killer deal on a 1970 FJ40. It was bone stock and in really great shape.
The first time I drove it was trip home from Wyoming to California! It got me
home and has done so ever since. That was 1995, I have been modifying
it to my specs, daily driver/ trail rig, ever since.

You see Land Cruisers in Africa, South America, Australia, even Antarctica!
Anywhere there are bad or non-existent roads. When you are in places where
the animals are bigger than your truck or can actually eat you, you want
to be in a Land Cruiser. When you are a freedom fighter and need a truck to
mount your machine gun on, a Land Cruiser is the ticket. Watch an old
expedition film or big game documentary and you will see a Land Cruiser,
sometimes in weird configurations, on the job.

After you have owned a Cruiser for a while you will start to know every inch
of it. You can be driving 60MPH down a road in a blizzard and catch a 2 inch
piece of an FJ40 fender, tucked in a shed , in the corner of your eye. Your
friends will be amazed at how you saw that from so far away, and you will
know that you just can't help it.

The "Land Cruiser Wave" is something you will notice, if you live in a place
like southern California, where no one even looks at each other crawling in
traffic. If another Cruiser is within binocular range, across 8 lanes of freeway,
the Cruiserhead inside will be almost breaking his arm waving at you because
he saw a 2 inch piece of your fender between 8000 cars on the freeway 5 miles
back. And you will be waving right back because you are now in a universal
brotherhood of people who appreciate the most overbuilt production truck
ever made.