It’s a take on a ’84 Landcruiser 60 series fused with a 1FZFE engine. This thing immediately pops, greeting you with Alpine Green – a familiar colour for those who lived through the grooviest decade. This creation embodies functional minimalism at its finest.
While this love letter to the Land Cruiser might look like a straight restoration – and did involve 2000 hours of painstaking, nut-and-bolt rejuvenation – the transformation takes a significant turn beneath the hood. Farewell to the lackluster 135bhp straight six; in its place, a contemporary electronic fuel-injected 1FZE engine steps up. It also offers the kind of mechanical reliability and serviceability that perhaps matches the Land Cruiser better than any other motor vehicle going. Bolt on a four speed automatic transmission, and you’ve a powertrain solution that offers modern performance from a purely old-school foundation. And that feels right, somehow.
Galvinising the frame and replacing the stock suspension with an ARB Old Man Emu setup means there’s some hope of reining it all back in. We should also mention that the suspension really is called Old Man Emu, and it is very much from Australia. But that’s a good thing – Australia’s corrugated dirt tracks are notorious car killers, so suspension designed to soak that up is likely a worthy addition to a broadly unkillable car.
