that is some serious truck porn in there.  I think I need a cold shower after looking at that. 

Josh,

We've had ourselves in many situations with our 100-series that exceeded our comfort level but not that of the hundy. We've got a med. OME lift, swing-out rear bumper and sliders but not much else. The tail-dragging was an early annoyance and we moved to get the spare and hitch out from under the truck first.

We haven't regretted a day of owning it...

I have been a Toyota owner since I've had my license but have only owned 4runners; an 87 turbo, 91, 94, and currently own a '99. I've always liked the 80 series Cruisers and finally found a '97 FZJ80 and bought one in April of '08 and love it. I've gone through a few 4runners, but I plan on keeping the Cruiser forever!

Craig, I don't think you'll be disappointed if you do go the Cruiser route.

Salue

My first time back here in awhile too.  Nice to see that people are realizing how dependable Toyotas are versus that European truck builder's stuff.  I went through that divorce about a decade ago.

My buddy Geoff has his 2001 Tacoma TRD 4 door, auto, white, with a Snugttop fiberglass canopy on the box.  The canopy has sliding windows and some kind of rug kit in the box. The mileage is 141 K..  Geoff says the truck comes with every option but leather. Also includes an electric sunroof and a Serius satellite radio with iPod adapter.  He bought it a while back down in AZ, so it is in really great shape.  no rust! Price is $14,500.  Geoff's phone #509-362-1008. If you have any questions, please call him, not me.  If you want pictures, I can take some for him and will PhotoShop them down to size and send them to you.

If I wanted a new truck, this is the one I'd be getting.  I could swap most of my off-road add-ons from my 2000 Tacoma with his 2001.  But I don't need a 4 door. 

Dale

I'm  liking this guys setup... Needs sliders, but it's not overdone.

  http://www.wildyoats.com/fzj80.htm

Great thread Craig. Thanks for opening my eyes to the LCs. After some much needed discussion, my iwfe and I decided its time to let the Rover go and get something ALOT more reliable. We are both thinking about trying out a LC.

I'll play Devil's advocate:

www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-sales27-2010jan27,0,1635017.story

All car companies have their issues.  To somehow think that changing to a Toyota is going to be a silver bullet, think again.

Dale, have you seen the "lefty" doubler boxes that Inchworm and Marlin crawler are making now?   Tacoma, FJ-C, and Tundra's all can get one of these boxes and add some serious gearing.    Probably not worth the expense given our use for trucks, but it's cool that there's a readily available option!   I'm still bummed that there's no widely available transmission swap or lower range transfer case gearsets for the LT-230 in LR land.   I guess a big part of it is that the stock 3.3 is still quite a bit better than most.  That is, until Jeep starting making 4:1 stock. 

Ryan, if you're looking into land cruisers I would recommend checking out Ih8mud.com. Similar to dweb without the little man complex. I  picked up my LC from their classified section for considerably less than I could find one on craigslist or at a dealer. Depending on the year your interested in LCs are becoming harder to find on Craigslist. Starting with the 100 series there was a serious drop in the number brought into the United States.

The Toyota recall doesn't include land cruisers or tacomas.

Hey Ryan!  Need to know more about your iWife.  Does Apple make them?  Are they virtual?  Sorta like a Stepford wife only more up to date .

Looking around and LC info today.. the LZJ80s are known to have some head gasket problems and the big thing to look out for is rust. I'm surprised by the latter... It's surprising to hear that mid 90s vehicles being described as being good with quarter sized rust holes.

Mike - Please stop the sarcastic brand bashing. If you have concrete information about Land Cruisers, then please feel free to post. The Toyota, Jeep, etc guys on NWOS don't go off on Land Rovers. Show them the same courtesy.

Craig