1973 Toyota Land Cruiser

1973 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 If you look at the grizzled, yet familiar face of this classic Toyota FJ Series 40, your mind immediately races to faraway lands with rugged mountain tops, dense jungles, frozen tundra, and seething deserts. Sure, the modern car companies want you to believe that your crossover is just as good at plodding through the jungle as it is conquering the Sahara but modern vehicles are simply an illusion to what a proper SUV should be able to do. Thx velocity.com, March 2021, The Toyota FJ Series is No Poser  For consignment, a 1973 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 showing 21,635 miles, but the true miles are unknown. As Jalopnik once wrote, Toyota FJ40's are basically U.S. Army Jeeps squeezed through another design process. Vintage utility vehicles are still a hot category in the market, and it doesn't matter whether they are barn/farm finds, or fully finished resto-UV's (RUV's?).  Exterior Pueblo Brown covers this rig with a distinctive Cygnus White roof, there to reflect light and heat when trekking the Serengeti, or the Trader Joe's parking lot in summer. Meanwhile, Pueblo Brown refers to the sun dried mud bricks of the southwest adobe. The white is picked up characteristically on the grille surround that takes in the round headlights, giving the FJ a familiar and recognizable face. White is also picked up by the 15-inch wheels that are 6 lug  steelies with some earned patina. In profile, the FJ is wonderfully slab sided with articulated front fenders that bends at angles rather than circle over the wheel opening. Rear quarter windows wrap around the corners while the barn door type access doors under a rear hatch hold a spare over a trailer hitch mounted on the frame. Round tail lights are found on the same plane and protected by bumpers that leave circles at the end so the lights are visible and protected from boulders or bighorn sheep. Beginning in the drip rails, cracking paint is noted and on other parts of the truck we find cracking Bondo, panels and running boards that have rusted through, rusty hardware, and significant amounts of bubbling. If patina tells a story, this truck portrays a 12 part mini series.  Interior Not as rough as a stucco bathtub, but still replete with patina on the inside. Door panels have vinyl inserts and not much else, leading in to find bucket seats with vinyl and cloth in black and gray coverage under dirty seat covers, and the driver's seat is raised with a wood box. In back, gray vinyl benches face inwards, fun for kids and kids at heart, and they can wear dirty boots because the vinyl mat on the floor won't suffer from a little more wear. Behind the black plastic steering wheel is a dash that definitely looks ex military and a tachometer has been added to the column in front of a modest speedometer and other gauges. To the right, knobs with age to them take their place on the brown dash panel along with an AM/FM radio. The glovebox wears an engraved shifting diagram revealing the operation of the floor mounted sticks. There's vinyl flooring up here as well along with Toyota branded rubber mats. Pedals are wrapped in black electrical tape, we're guessing to keep the rubber pads on. A perforated headliner is still in place, weathered but mostly intact.  Drivetrain Under the hood is the driver quality 3.9 liter inline six, fueled by a 2-barrel carburetor and rated at 125 horsepower. A 3-speed manual puts the rig in motion and splits drive between 4.10 gears at each axle. Power drum brakes are at all four wheels, but as we'll learn, they're currently ineffective.  Undercarriage As expected, surface rust, oil, layers of caked on sooty grease, and areas of substantial invasive rust exist underneath. The single exhaust is intact and flows through a stock style muffler before sending out an exhaust pipe. Leaf spring suspension is utilized front and rear. Drive-Ability Due to inoperable brakes, we were not able to take the truck around the loop. B