Hey, finally had a chance to sit down and make a post here tonight, to introduce myself and my rig.
My name is Ryan, and I'm from the beautiful foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. My earliest memories are of camping and off roading with my family. My dad had an FJ40 before I was born, and I grew up hearing stories about the Land Cruiser and how great it was. When was 15 or so, I knew I wanted a 4x4 once I got my licence. Of course naturally I was looking at Jeeps, and really didn't have a clue. One night, we were Christmas shopping at Best Buy of all places, and there, in the audio install bay, was the most beautiful vehicle I had ever seen in my life. A Freeborn red FJ40, slight lift, but mostly stock. It was like every adventure movie I had ever seen, mixed with automotive design perfection. It was amazing. My dad laughed, and said THAT is a Land Cruiser, that's what I had... OK.. well, I knew what I wanted.
Not two weeks later, I heard a deep throaty engine at the neighbor's house, and looked over to see what it was... and it was a bright orange FJ40. What are the chances of that. This guy has over 20 cars in his yard. He's a cool old body guy, and buys and sells and collects random cars like crazy. So I went over almost right away and asked if he was interested in selling the Land Cruiser. No, it is his wife's, she had one as a little girl and they got this one for her. So, I walked back and looked it over, and fell even more in love with it. I had to have it. I worked for him a bunch that summer, helped him reroof the house, and shop, and did a bunch of just odd jobs for him. And always "visited" the cruiser while I was over there. A few months go by and he called me one day and asked if I still wanted the cruiser, and of course I said yes. And the next day it was in my driveway.
So, my first car was my FJ40. I drove it as my daily throughout high school and a few years after. My friends and I spent every bit of spare time out wheeling at local places. Summers we spent weeks camping in Tahoe NF with a 12 pack of soda, a package of hot dogs, and a tarp I would sleep on next to the cruiser. Rarely brought tools, or anything useful. Pretty much camped and wheeled and swam until we were out of fuel or out of food and then came home. It was great.
A few years go by, and I finally was able to do a spring over on the cruiser. Spring over axle, disk brakes, power steering. Suddenly it was a totally different vehicle. Well, that didn't last long, the inline 6 gave up on life 2 years later and it got a V8/SM420 swap at that point.
Then, about 3 years ago, I did something kind of radical. I repainted it back to to original color. It had been orange since I owned it, but they never had repainted the inside of the vehicle, so I knew that it was originally spring green, which happened to be my favorite cruiser color. It was a bit hard to get rid of the orange, since it always orange for me, but I was very happy once I did it.
I've owned it 15 years now, and I still love it. It's still my favorite vehicle and always will be. I have 2 FJ40s, 2FJ55s, an 82 Hilux, and an LX450 and "Elsie" is still the one I enjoy the most.
My name is Ryan, and I'm from the beautiful foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. My earliest memories are of camping and off roading with my family. My dad had an FJ40 before I was born, and I grew up hearing stories about the Land Cruiser and how great it was. When was 15 or so, I knew I wanted a 4x4 once I got my licence. Of course naturally I was looking at Jeeps, and really didn't have a clue. One night, we were Christmas shopping at Best Buy of all places, and there, in the audio install bay, was the most beautiful vehicle I had ever seen in my life. A Freeborn red FJ40, slight lift, but mostly stock. It was like every adventure movie I had ever seen, mixed with automotive design perfection. It was amazing. My dad laughed, and said THAT is a Land Cruiser, that's what I had... OK.. well, I knew what I wanted.
Not two weeks later, I heard a deep throaty engine at the neighbor's house, and looked over to see what it was... and it was a bright orange FJ40. What are the chances of that. This guy has over 20 cars in his yard. He's a cool old body guy, and buys and sells and collects random cars like crazy. So I went over almost right away and asked if he was interested in selling the Land Cruiser. No, it is his wife's, she had one as a little girl and they got this one for her. So, I walked back and looked it over, and fell even more in love with it. I had to have it. I worked for him a bunch that summer, helped him reroof the house, and shop, and did a bunch of just odd jobs for him. And always "visited" the cruiser while I was over there. A few months go by and he called me one day and asked if I still wanted the cruiser, and of course I said yes. And the next day it was in my driveway.
So, my first car was my FJ40. I drove it as my daily throughout high school and a few years after. My friends and I spent every bit of spare time out wheeling at local places. Summers we spent weeks camping in Tahoe NF with a 12 pack of soda, a package of hot dogs, and a tarp I would sleep on next to the cruiser. Rarely brought tools, or anything useful. Pretty much camped and wheeled and swam until we were out of fuel or out of food and then came home. It was great.
A few years go by, and I finally was able to do a spring over on the cruiser. Spring over axle, disk brakes, power steering. Suddenly it was a totally different vehicle. Well, that didn't last long, the inline 6 gave up on life 2 years later and it got a V8/SM420 swap at that point.
Then, about 3 years ago, I did something kind of radical. I repainted it back to to original color. It had been orange since I owned it, but they never had repainted the inside of the vehicle, so I knew that it was originally spring green, which happened to be my favorite cruiser color. It was a bit hard to get rid of the orange, since it always orange for me, but I was very happy once I did it.
I've owned it 15 years now, and I still love it. It's still my favorite vehicle and always will be. I have 2 FJ40s, 2FJ55s, an 82 Hilux, and an LX450 and "Elsie" is still the one I enjoy the most.
