Larry Chen: My Dream FZJ80 Land Cruiser A.K.A. The 80 Series We Never Got In the US Video

Larry Chen Video Transcript

Cranks right up you are so happy So cool Well he’s living his best life I’ve never had so much fun driving this slow is you you guys are definitely used to the cold weather I’m I’m freezing out here uh-huh guys are like wearing t-shirts this is not even cold at all I don’t know what you’re talking about you

Know what really surprised me was the altitude here the the altitude when I opened up when I opened up my bag all my toiletries and everything was about to explode because of oh yeah bathroom stove yeah yeah shampoos yeah everything so actually I wanted to bring you out

Here because I wanted to talk to you about your personal 80 series you know there’s just so many amazing Vehicles here at the FJ company in Colombia in Bogota but in terms of one that speaks to me the most I mean I grew up in the 90s

But I never had a chance to see these new and the way this sits right now this is like a new car look Larry this this car was a strike of luck I think because this car we found almost as it is right now it was a one family own car

We actually bought it from the second owner but the the first owner was the Toyota dealer for a small city called manisalis so it was his car there’s some pictures of him standing proudly by his uh dealer with the car so of course it’s been Cared by in a very special way

Uh not normal and then the second owner is a is a good friend a good car enthusiast who likes cars but but then we really took it to the to the next level like we have been doing very patiently like a show preparation and the purpose of this car is to have

It show without we haven’t painted we haven’t modified yes we have changed some of the Plastics that were you you know a little bit scratched or whatever but this car is a preservation candidate and we’ve treated it as if it was a the most important car in the world and

That’s how we intend to keep it for for for many years possibly so a couple questions were you looking out for this were you actively looking for a perfect fjz80 yeah and I actually have to say that I let one go that was even better than this

I let one that had 30 000 kilometers at this this one’s around 40 40 or something because I thought it was too expensive three or four years ago and it would be an absolute bargain right now because we did see that they were picking up in in interest I mean

People like you and I who grew up when these were brand new When We Were Young and we were not even close to having the money to buy one those are the guys that have that have bid up these cars and I still think that they are going to be bit up more

I think the fj62 is going through that right now but remember this car has coils in the four corners the the ride in this car is so much smoother than a 62. I mean way smoother and and so and the AC on this is better uh the 1fz engine and this is fantastic

Versus well we have the 3F on the ft60 this is so much better I love the 62 yes but this car I mean these cars are awesome this is pretty much considered the first modern one that’s more luxurious that’s not so off-road focused yeah that’s not as

Utilitarian but I have a question for you about this in Colombia what was it it was it like a status car or was it an everyday vehicle for people in Colombia uh definitely a status cars definitely status cars amongst anything that had to do with rural businesses cattle agriculture

Rural businesses that were not legitimate status status status status symbol many of them were they were armored very hard to find cars that had had were not armored here in Colombia back then because it was the only car that could withstand the weight of the armor and

Even to this day this is the Toyota is the car that if you’re going to add 200 300 pounds 400 pounds it’s the car to have over Mercedes over BMW whatever so yes definitely a status symbol car a longevity car somebody that wanted a real car would end up having this yeah

Because the thing about this vehicle is that in terms of it being a Survivor this really is a true survivor because they were really beaten up pretty bad here in Colombia it’s not like you just took it to the shopping mall and back or go you know you didn’t go pick up your

Kids from school and back you used it to go off-roading and you used it for serious work and remember the off-roading was not for sports purposes the off-roading was to commute from a city to a farm from a city to a factory out in the mountains so this was real

Transportation with luggage most of them had some sort of rack on top and they put a lot of weight a lot of people inside so yes these cars were definitely used and abused and most of them have 500 000 600 000 kilometers who knows let’s just spit off some quick facts

About this that I’m I just love so much this tailgate this is not standard in the US this is something that I actually have seen only at the Land Cruiser Museum and I’ve seen a couple of them in Japan and also on top of that the rear mounted

Spare yeah super cool but there’s actually a purpose for this right so if it’s a regular split tailgate you can’t actually mount a rear spare but there’s a reason why this has a rear spare this actually has an extended range secondary tank that would go where the US spare would actually go that’s

Right and the thing is the stock tank is actually pretty small and for Toyota to essentially double the amount of fuel that it can carry this is so cool it really is so cool and I’m guessing for Colombia use the fuel stations were just way further apart I

Think this is this comes to be more important in the desert really in Africa South Africa anywhere Australia for the long hauls I think that’s more designed towards those places but still like you said even here there is an ample Supply there has been an ample supply of gas stations but you probably

Don’t didn’t want to stop in many of them because of the quality of the gas so this is one of the features that people loved about these cars for sure yeah and it is it is gas not diesel left hand drive and its five-speed manual yeah which is something I’ve never seen

Before I did have a chance to drive this and I’m just so blown away at how nice it drives it drives like a new vehicle yeah and remember the the four-speed automatic back then was still kind of sluggish heavy when it shifts it shifts a little abruptly while here it is this

Is the the Toyota 5-speed is silky smooth and you can really get the most out of the FZ driving it that way so just to show you guys this I’ve just been kind of looking in and out of this thing it looks like a brand new vehicle

I know you guys restored some of this stuff and there’s some new components like the carpets but it it smells so nice so the these are the original carpets but obviously these are reproductions of the originals but like look at this the door panels and everything all this is

Stock all this is original the cushions everything in the upholstery of the car is absolutely stocked nothing has been changed and again this is a car that was very well taken care of by the guy that would take care of it which again he was

The owner of the dealer and he kept this as his girlfriend I think incredible it is so cool so then there’s a switch here for the secondary fuel tank to turn it on and there’s also a secondary gauge here Anna altimeter which is super cool in meters this is

The gauge for the normal fuel tank and then on top of that to add fuel what I didn’t know is that there’s a this little button there’s this valve that actually switches between the fill tanks so you can add fuel to either or it’s just so many little things you know

And it even gives you instructions how to fill uh how to fill fuel sub tank and you’ve seen Larry the comparisons I’ve seen it in a couple of places they are comparing the 80s the FZ 80s with the 993 of the 911s and I think that’s a fair comparison

Because it’s still in some ways compact it’s still a light car compared to Modern cars and the modern 300 or 200 but it’s got modern suspension four coils it’s got four wheel four wheel disc brakes it has all the components in the AC Electronics anything that you would want

In a new car you have here I see why people would say that because this is the last solid front axle yes right so the 100 series which came after this had independent front correct yeah this one in particular like look how nice this Interiors this one actually didn’t

Come with the factory electronic lockers but unless you’re doing some serious rock crawling honestly you don’t really need front and rear lockers if you took this into a situation where you needed the lockers you would pretty much damage you would damage the underside of the car pretty bad

Just the fun everything the headlights I’m guessing you guys touched a lot of things here at the F2 company but a lot of things were just good enough to just probably have a good cleaning not 90 of the car was perfect and and was needed to be cleaned yes we

Did change the headlight to the correct headlights there was a cracked windshield that we changed we spotted the the New Old Stock but again not even 90 percent I think it was 95 that was in perfect shape I mean look at the engine the engine will tell you the the age and the

Preservation status of this car not cracked powder completely sealed from the factory this car is like new and and there wouldn’t be a need to to open it up because these things are rock solid and with the care that people had with this car absolutely incredible and it’s also

Whisper quiet when when I turned it on you couldn’t really the the starter was the loudest part Once it was on you almost couldn’t tell that it was on it was just so quiet and these are just built to last absolutely incredible I mean again I’m used to driving a 60 and fj62 because I we have one and I like to drive it but

When you get on this thing this shows me the suspension is so much better the brakes the car tracks so much better than the 62 which again it was leaf spring so there’s there’s not even not even uh a point in comparing the two cars what

Year is this one this is a 91. so what are your plans for this are you going to take this to the US are you going to leave this in Columbia so we want to take it to the US and really preserve it take it to some Toyota shows maybe lend

It out to a Toyota dealership or or even in the ticket to races uh I’d like to hook up with them and show it because this thing needs to be shown once in a while yeah no it’s incredible okay so can we talk about both of our favorite feature on this car

My absolute favorite feature which I think you can see it best from back here I just can’t believe this is a thing I’ve never seen anything like this before but look remember these these cars the fact that these things had an AC in the back it was revolutionary I mean was

This an option or that was an option so that was the option so this is this is the option because there wasn’t tunneling to get air from the front to the back and it it’s not like the newer 200 series which there was a separate blower unit for the

Back and you could you know the back passengers can actually control the AC or heat independently this is actually this plastic clear tube is feeding cold air or hot air from the front absolutely and and it’s like it’s like crudely put in but it’s not because they’ve put in so

Much force sight and forethought that they made it clear so you can still see through it have transparency so the the thing when you saw that the first time you were like what is that I didn’t know what it was and we were 15 or 16 years

Old and and you didn’t know you were like what is that until you had the chance to either have somebody explain to you or you really got to touch one which was highly unlikely if you were 15. and then you’d be like well it’s got AC in

The back and it was like wow so okay so it’s been interesting because I could see where the wiring comes in right so this is not attached to anything up here it seems like um in terms of wiring but you have your own separate set of controls which I’m

Guessing controls some blower in the system an extra blower so it’s going to pull basically this is just so crazy but but the fact that they thought hey let’s not obstruct A View From whoever’s sitting here or the driver it is Toyota Ingenuity yeah yeah yeah for sure from the 80s

And early 90s the other thing that you have to mention Larry is you can beat up these cars the 80s and there will be no rattles squeaks nothing I mean the way the doors fit into the into the chassis is unlike again that’s why I do feel this is like

A 993 when you compare it to that world so I did see some of the restoration pictures and I know all of this was restored it’s still the original panels because you can’t find we could probably do new panels but you you matched it so

Well here so we tried to get them new everywhere we tried Asia we tried it with all the suppliers eBay I mean we did and we just couldn’t find them and we just they were cracked in some places you know this is where the luggage used

To go so yeah even in this car there were a little bit of uh cracks and stuff and we took care of that and it came out beautiful it looks so good we were able to locate the stereo oh oh it’s the original stereo yeah

And it works works we were also able to get the antenna this thing was bad the switch we were able to get it so now now the antenna goes up and down but you were also able to get a lot of New Old Stock Parts I’m sure yeah the major things are

There like the headlights the front wind the windshield we got some of the plastic parts that were cracked we got but it was very very little that’s the view see if you look back there you can still see through it yeah it’s like if it wasn’t there I mean it is there and

You and it’s you love you love it for being there but it’s the opposite of the fjx you see how it blows back and forth yeah but it’s the opposite of the FJ Cruiser you know the FJ they put anything you can’t see anything but this they went out of the

Way to make sure you could see everything so cool where’s the keys can we turn it on yeah this is so weird that I’m sitting in an 80s series with a third pedal here and I I love the quality of the third pedal it feels so

Soft so good and you know what it’s actually not that hard to drive for a truck absolutely not it’s a very smooth car the pedal feel is is the pedal effort is is low you know it’s not like a big truck or a heavy truck even the steering

They’re easy to drive but look look at the dimensions of the car Larry yeah again I can touch both sides of the car easily if you try to do that in any modern truck they’re so large they’re so big um of course the height can be a problem

Yeah but this is I mean built to have a full a full set of passengers yeah I mean they’re seat belts too right for eight passengers I guess yeah yeah they’re super comfortable and it’s a super comfortable car I love it you even had a sunroof beautiful sunroof works and and the

Electric motors on these cars I mean you’ve seen it they are old but they sound like they were new yeah all the electric components in the Toyotas of these these years are solid solid I can’t believe you found the original so did this have an aftermarket unit it had

An after a very nice aftermarket and we tried finding this for months until we that was hard to find frankly so I see some this is the rear cool I think look and this is because they stole them and most countries where they operate they steal them they crack them so this is

Why they have to have this is so important amazing the Clock Works too the dash I can’t believe how nice it is the original Dash that uh I the the thing that struck me the most about this car when I when I when I first saw it in person

Was your holster so this thing was obviously always always had covers on here and here for sure and this is why because recreating this is impossible right you just can’t yeah because even though it only has 40 000 288 kilometers you know they could all be short trips

Too you know or whatever around town you could still put a lot of wear and tear on this fabric because this fabric was not meant to last not very durable yeah it’s a heavier person a bigger person they all start to to wear here very quickly amazing

Well thank you for showing us this thing this thing is so cool I’m so lucky to be able to drive this you just have to find a show in in the US and we’ll take it oh yeah well so next stop radwood we’ll take this to radwood and I no it’s going

To blow people’s minds because of how brand new this is I I’m just stunning I’ve never seen it you know the only thing close is at the Land Cruiser Museum but this is like this is Museum quality this car is without a doubt it’s striking I honestly after seeing your

Builds from the FJ company I wouldn’t expect anything less from you guys really and again there’s there is I hate to say there’s a better one I don’t know who has it now it’s the one that I let go because I thought it was too expensive four years ago and I was

Completely wrong that was a like a burgundy metallic burgundy I don’t know what that color is called and that might have been fuel injection that might have been the later Juan MC got it got it and that one was believe it or not in a more striking appearance than this

One this is very close but yeah well I hope whoever has that one is taking care of it because I want to see that one too so this is this is of the era this is CRF so if you see everything in the car has that why because they used to steal everything

Oh so this was a a theft deterrent feature where if you would go to the used part lot and it was branded you would be deterred from buying a stolen part windows so a lot of major parts it’s on everything so it was of the era

So that’s something people used to do in all the cars back then here and in some and in other Latin American countries but look whoa they put it on everything so so the guys at the shop here were like ah but it’s all branded I’m like oh

It’s the plate and that’s the plate so it doesn’t mean anything else it’s the it’s the place so you can’t change the play you can’t change the plate that’s for that car huh amazing look yeah every single day I like this I think it’s part of the history of what

These cars did here of how people took care of them yeah I mean you don’t do this to a car that you’re going to buy and sell in two years to do you do this to a car that you’re gonna keep for 15 20 25 years yeah hey thanks for watching

If you want to support us directly go to larrychandprince.com I print and sign every single one of these this is the perfect gift or it’s the perfect piece of art for your wall oh [Applause]