[Intro]
Hi, everybody. It's Tyler, and you're listening to Toyota Untold. And if you're listening to this particular episode, chances are you love Land Cruisers. I absolutely love Land Cruisers. My husband and I, we have three of them. But it's unlikely that you love them as much as today's guest, Greg Miller. Greg was such a huge fan of this endlessly capable Toyota classic that he found himself with six of them in his personal collection.
At that point, he realized no one, not even Toyota, was preserving the history of the Land Cruiser with the museum dedicated to its lineage. And the rest is history, literally. The Land Cruiser Heritage Museum is a celebration of all things Land Cruiser. It's located in Salt Lake City with the goal of inspiring adventure. This story takes us, well, way beyond Utah, but we'll get to that later. First, let's meet Greg. My name is Greg Miller. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah.
And I am the Founder and Chairman of the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum. The way we're set up is we're open to the public, and we're open Monday through Saturday from 8:00 to 5:00. There's an admission fee schedule, depending on whether you're a senior, or a vet, or a student, or a child, or an adult. And folks are welcome to stop in and tour the museum at their own pace. Each vehicle has a placard in front of it that tells kind of the overview of that particular model.
And then, the second paragraph tells about that specific vehicle, and how it was used, and how it was acquired, and so on. Then, there's a little map that shows the area and the year of production run and so on. We have two full time employees that are very knowledgeable about the vehicles in the museum and about Land Cruisers in general. All right. Big time Toyota fans, especially those out West, you might recall seeing Greg's name elsewhere associated with the brand.
I don't know if the listeners would find it interesting to know that about two months ago, our family sold our dealerships. From May 1st of 1979 until just a couple of months ago, we were in the car business in a big way, which included probably ten Toyota stores in the Western states, three Lexus stores, and a host of other competitive brands.
And so, having been in the car business officially from '79 until '21, plus the ten years or so prior to that, we had a lot of deep and really meaningful relationships with the folks at TMS. The Heritage Museum is the place to visit for fans of Land Cruiser, but where did it come from? How and why was the museum founded? Land Cruisers have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My first memory of a Land Cruiser was when I was about four years old.
We lived in Littleton, Colorado, at the time. And my dad was the park's manager at Stevinson Toyota in Lakewood, Colorado. And I went to work with him one day. And while he was working, I wandered off and found myself in the back lot where a lot of the customer service vehicles were. And I remember seeing this really cool powder blue jeep looking vehicle, and I walked up to it. And I remember the door handle hit me about eye level, and I reached up and grabbed it and it opened.
And I climbed up in there - and I think I was four or five year old - and pretended like I was driving. And I can still smell that intoxicating combination of rusted metal, Naugahyde, oil, rubber, dust that all kind of combines to have that euphoric smell that you can smell in a lot of the vehicles if you open the door at the Landcruiser Heritage Museum today. And that would have been in the early '70s. My dad started his career with Toyota in 1968.
And then, we moved to Colorado in 1970 and stayed there until my dad bought his first Toyota store in Murray, Utah in 1979. And so, Toyota's have always been, like, the car that our families have driven. And most of the time my dad drove a Land Cruiser. He took us on family vacations. When we were in Colorado, we jumped in in an FJ55, and we'd either go to Disneyland, or Canyonlands, or up into Alberta, Canada, Lake Louise and Banff, and so on. And so, there were a lot of fond memories there.
And then, when my dad bought his Toyota store, my mom always had an FJ60 as a demo, and that was the car that I took my driver's license test in. And I remember I bought my first Land Cruiser when I was 17. It was an 1970 FJ40. I'd love to buy it back. I've been looking for it and can't find it. And I've just bought and sold Land Cruisers ever since.
I love them. I love everything about them. The origins of the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum, I guess, there were a couple of trains on parallel tracks that eventually converged. One, was that I had begun collecting Land Cruisers, I would say, I had one in the early 2000s. I had one FJ40 that I still own. And we call it Senior, because it's the one that I've owned longer than any of the others in the collection. But then, I started to acquire others probably in about '06 or '07.
I'd had probably a dozen Land Cruisers prior to that. But I was at a point in my career where I had the means to start acquiring multiples at a time, and so I had a small stable of Land Cruisers. And then, in December of 2012, my son, Oakley, and I went to Japan with Scott Brady, who's the Founder and Chairman of Overland Journal. And we were there to take delivery of a VDJ78 Land Cruiser, 2012 model, actually two of them, that we were going to use for
our expedition to drive around the world and actually drive the same Land Cruiser on all seven continents. And, of course, we set aside additional time on that trip to visit the Toyota museums and learn what we could. And, of course, we were excited to see the Land Cruisers that Toyota had on display at these museums.
And we went to three different museums on that trip, all owned by Toyota, and saw not a single Land Cruiser on display inside. Now, admittedly, one of the museums was their Loom Museum, where it just talked about the origins of the company. So, the likelihood of seeing a Cruiser there was pretty low, of course. The other two automotive museums was really disappointing that there wasn't one there.
And I had some idea of what Land Cruiser meant to Toyota in terms of Toyota becoming a global car company. As your listeners probably know, the Land Cruiser was the first car that would enter a new market, and it would be there and it would establish this reputation for Toyota being this legendary quality, dependability, reliability, bulletproof vehicle. And then, they would follow it up with a Crown or a Hilux or a Toyota Pat or other models. And that was their M.O.
for years. And so, it was surprising to me that there were none on display in the museum. So, I came home and that thought was kind of in the back of my head. And then, one day, not long after that trip to Japan, I was with a friend of mine, Kurt Williams, who owns Cruiser Outfitters. Most people in the Land Cruiser community know Kurt.
And Kurt and I were driving to the middle of Wyoming to buy a Soft Top BJ70 Land Cruiser. And on the way to pick it up, we had our laptop and we started to sketch out what a museum might look like and what the parameters, the rules of engagement, so to speak, would be, and what kind of facility would be required to house it, what kind of money would be necessary to procure all these vehicles, and so on.
And I remember that night, the big takeaway was that we came up with about 100 different models of Land Cruiser that we would need to curate, but that included a lot of different applications, like a fire truck or a police vehicle or an ambulance. And so, if you cut it back to just OEM offerings, that probably would have been in the 60s somewhere.
And then, of course, you have historically significant ones as well, like the one that won the Baja and the car rallies and different things like that. So, anyway, we kind of framed it out and for a long time the spreadsheet that we created on that was the roadmap to building out the Land Cruiser Museum. I began building around that small stable of Land Cruisers that I had. There were some interesting vehicles in there, but they weren't all necessarily museum worthy vehicles.
But that gave me a small launching pad from which to launch the museum initiative. So, selling off the ones that didn't have a place in the museum and using the proceeds from those to chase down one that did, and so on. So, that was kind of the nucleus of the collection.
The museum's history is closely linked to Expedition 7, an incredible global trek where Greg outfitted a number of 78 series Land Cruisers and took them on a journey around the world, passing through all seven continents, even Antarctica. My friend, Kurt Williams, he introduced me to Scott Brady. I was able to arrange a meeting with Scott when he was in Salt Lake City a few years ago, probably in 2010 or '11, for a convention. And Scott and I went to breakfast.
We were getting to know each other a little bit. And Scott said just in the course of the conversation - he knew I was a Land Cruiser enthusiast - "You know, Greg, I've driven Land Cruisers on five different continents." And I interrupted him right there and I said, "Wow. That's cool. Was it the same Land Cruiser?" And he said, "No. It was different Land Cruisers." And I said, "Wouldn't it have been cool if it was the same Land Cruiser on all five continents?
And wouldn't it be even cooler if it would have been on all seven continents?" And he said, "Yeah. That'd be cool." And I said, "Is that ever been done?" And he said, "No. It's never been done, but I've got the blueprint to do that trip." And then, I was hooked. It was like, "Wow. You've already mapped this all out in your head." And so, we agreed that we would have a subsequent conversation where he would kind of walk me through what elements were required to pull that off.
And he's a really busy guy, and it took us a month or two to reconnect. And I just remember in that period, it was like I was just kind of floating in space. It's like I was so eager to get traction and started planning the trip. But I knew so little about it. Even with all of my adventure travel, I don't think that travel was relative on a global scale. And so, I really needed Scott's inputs. And when we finally connected, it was just magic. It was like, "Yeah. We can do that.
We can do that. That's a great idea. What if we did this in addition?" And it just kind of took off. And my connections with Toyota, along with Scott's experience in overland travel on a global basis and his attention to detail, he's got the patience of Job, just a super high quality guy, along with some of the resources I was able to bring to the effort, it was a perfect combination of talents and resources.
And as far as I'm concerned, we launched in that December 2011 trip when we went to pick the cars up and take them off the assembly line in Japan. And then, there's so many side stories to this. Just one quick one. We couldn't have the cars shipped directly to the U.S., of course, because they were non-U.S. Spec cars. They were 2012 VDJ78 Land Cruisers. We needed the one VDT engine, which is a 4.5 liter turbo diesel. We needed a front and rear diff locks.
And we needed air conditioning. And at that time, the only market that those three features were available in was New Zealand. So, we had to form a company in New Zealand specifically for the purpose of purchasing and registering these cars before they could be temporarily imported to the
U.S. So, we did all that. I remember when the cars finally made it to the port, I think it was in Stockton, California, my son, Oakley, and I, along with Scott and a couple of others, flew out and took delivery of them right from the port, drove them to Prescott, Arizona, where the first wave of modifications was done, particularly to the interiors where the sleeping platform was. And there were a couple of exterior mods.
And from there, they came to Tooele, Utah, where Proffitt's Cruisers was at the time, and they did a lot of the mechanical modifications to them. And then, in early April of 2011, the vehicles left Tooele, Utah, enroute to Prudhoe Bay or Deadhorse, Alaska. And a team from Proffitt's Cruisers and a friend of mine drove them up there. And then, I flew up with my three sons, and met Scott Brady, and the photographer, and a couple of other drivers up there.
And the trip officially began, like the journey part of the trip began, I want to say, April 11, 2012. I learned a lot in the up fit of these vehicles. I think prior to connecting with Scott Brady, my thing was to just say, "Yeah. Let's bolt one of those on, let's put one of those on, let's do two of those." And what Scott taught me was the value of minimalism. He said, "These vehicles need to be capable. They're going to take us around the world and we need them to be outfitted accordingly.
But we don't want a bunch of stuff on there that we don't want." You know, there's no roof racks on them. I mean, well, you'll notice that the roof racks that are on them are minimalist roof racks. And that's because we wanted to go for minimal weight, minimal drag. The racks didn't really get a lot of use except when we'd sleep on them. There were a couple of times when we had a lot of people with us where we throw gear up there.
But it's kind of like everything you need and nothing you don't. And if I were doing it again, which is a whole separate story, I would probably use those vehicles as a template to up fit whatever the second round of those vehicles would be. When we first set out to assemble a team of participants in Expedition 7 - At this point, if you're like the rest of us, you're raising your hand, "Pick me. Pick me." Greg built his team from the best.
... the things that we were looking for were good drivers. Of course, we knew we wanted to document it from a videography and photography standpoint, so we had premium photographers and videographers along with us. And then, beyond that, it was just good chemistry. Because when you're together that long in stressful, like, endurance type driving situations, you need to be with folks that there's a good vibe with.
So, that's really what the criteria were. As we got more experience with that type of travel and in this particular expedition, we started to select for other qualities as well. Navigate a little bit of mechanical but, of course, we were in Land Cruisers and we knew that they were going to be pretty dependable and not need a lot of range turning.
So, those would probably be the two that we added, the two attributes that we selected for until the very end. And then, what I realized about the time we hit the last continent was that the culinary aspects of E7 weren't even close to the other aspects of it. And so, my middle son, Josh, actually pointed that out to me. He's like me, he gets hangry when he doesn't have good nutrition or doesn't eat on time. And he said, "Dad, I'm sick of eating out of cans and out of cellophane.
I'm going to take charge of the meals on this thing and we're going to upgrade." And he did, to his credit, and it added a whole lot to it. And then, that actually informed the subsequent Greenland Expedition, which if there's time, I'd love to talk more about that. So, that was really the attribute group that we selected for. One of my favorite memories about these trucks happened after the expedition was over.
And I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with the ever better expedition where Mr. Toyoda decided he wanted to drive a 200 series across a number, I think it was five continents. And we were invited to be part of that journey when that expedition came through Utah. And so, we went down and visited that expedition in Moab. And as part of that, I brought the vehicle that drove across all seven continents, this 78 Troopy.
We went down there and I was invited to give a short presentation on Expedition 7. And I shared during that presentation that the only failure we had - I think it wound up being 140,000 collective miles driven across the Australian outback, and Africa, the Namib desert in Africa and so on - was the same failure on three other trucks that was the solenoid that activated the rear diff lock.
And that was after 1,000 miles in the Australian outback when we were going through the grass, and the sand, and the mud, and everything. And the failures all occurred within 1,000 miles of each other. And it's because that solenoid was exposed at the time on the rear diff. And I didn't realize it at the time, but there were maybe a dozen TMC engineers, they were from Japan, in the back of the room, all with black pants and red shirts on.
And as soon as I concluded my presentation, they all bolted for the door and ran out and crawled under the car with their flashlights and cell phones looking at it, taking pictures. And Kurt Williams was there and, of course, he was with us in Australia when the failures occurred, and he's an engineer by training, so he was able to crawl under there with them and say,
"In order to remedy it, we just jumped it from here to here." And I'm pretty sure that within about a week or two they changed their manufacturing process and got that problem fixed. But that was the only mechanical failure we had with, like I say, 140,000 or 150,000 collective miles of pretty intense driving. Land Cruisers have their legendary reputation for a reason, and they live up to it.
Determined to touch every inch of the map, in 2018, Greg embarked on an extension of the Expedition 7 trip that took Land Cruisers to Greenland. So, Greenland came about actually as a surrogate for the North Pole when I was driving across Antarctica. As it turns out, when I was waiting to catch the plane from Antarctica back to Cape Town, we were in this little makeshift lounge. And a man walked up to me and said, "Are you Greg Miller?" And I said, "Yes, I am." He said, "My name is Inge Solheim.
I live in Norway. And we have a common friend in Emil Grimsson." Emil was the CEO and founder of Arctic Trucks. Inge said, "Emil tells me that you'd like to drive to the North Pole." And I said, "Well, I would, but I'm not sure that the conditions would allow. I know the ice is getting softer, and there's open leads, and pressure ridges. And I don't want to get my truck wet. It's kind of important to me now that it's been to the South Pole." And Inge said, "I can get you there.
I can get you to the North Pole." So, in April of 2015, I flew to the North Pole with Inge. We went to the Russian Air Base and we did the whole thing. And it confirmed my suspicion that it probably wasn't a good idea. Massive open leads, massive pressure ridges, totally unsafe, in my opinion. And so, Greenland became the surrogate for that. I knew I wanted to do another polar adventure, arctic adventure, and polar region. And my truck was still in Iceland.
That's where it went after the Antarctica expedition segment of E7. And it was there having maintenance performed by Arctic Trucks and just waiting for me to decide if I wanted to go to the North Pole or not. And so, it was relatively close anyway. And so, we began exploring the possibility of doing a north-south traverse of Greenland. And the more we looked into it, the more I became convinced that it was doable. And that's how that all came about.
It's about 1,600 miles from the southern tip to the northern tip. And there's actually a little more if you count all the land of the northern end of the ice sheet, it might be 1,800 miles long. But if you take it and just lay it across North America, it looks like it's as long as North America, as wide, and it's not. It's about half that long. By the time we got to the Greenland Expedition, we knew exactly what we needed. We needed drivers, photographers, navigators, ice experts.
We needed a medical guy. And we did need a tech because if we had a mechanical when it's 20, 30, 40 below and the wind's blowing the same, it could be life or death. And so, we had the ultimate avengers team. There were seven guys in three trucks, and that's Nirvana in terms of the number of people and the number of trucks. And it worked beautifully. And we weren't that well sorted. Even at the end of E7, we thought we were. We thought we were just totally dialed in.
But it wasn't as laser precision as it was across Greenland. Of course, after visiting Greenland, Greg would have been forgiven for skipping Antarctica. The leg they knew would be the most challenging and most dangerous. He didn't. Antarctica, it was a huge adventure, just as you would imagine. I mean, from flying a vehicle with you, I mean, when was the last time you ever flew somewhere and your truck was right behind that net and it got off the plane when you did?
So, that was just epic to begin with. And then, to see the logistics that were there on the air base in Antarctica, combined with all the logistics that were required to get everything lined up, to actually be standing on the ice next to the truck . Including the intel that Arctic Trucks had gathered from a previous event in Antarctica where they knew where all the crevasses were and the route to safely navigate across the ice sheet without danger of falling into a crevasse and so on.
I would say that's it. Just the preparation was an adventure in itself. But then, once we were actually on the ground, I think endurance was probably one of the first words that comes to mind because it's so cold, it's so windy. We were there between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so that was the time of year when the weather was theoretically best and it was light 24/7. So, I'm one who can't sleep in the light. I have to have darkness to sleep. And so, I just didn't sleep in Antarctica.
And so, it became then a debate as to whether we want to try to pull over and get some sleep or do we just power through and keep driving and get done and back to camp so that we can get some sleep in a dark environment, and in a horizontal, and in a bed, and so on. And so, that was part of it. And then, I think one of the things that I still shake my head when I think about, is, it goes back to logistics.
I'm going to say it was 86 degrees south, there was actually an airbase - it might have been 89 degrees south - there was a base that was manned by three Russian gentlemen and one man from Iceland. And they spent three months there supporting other scientific expeditions. And I don't know if you remember that Prince Harry was there with a fundraiser where they had some wounded veterans from the UK, Australia, the U.S. and Canada, and they were all skiing the last degree to the south.
So, that was going on at the same time. And so, that was one of the other expeditions that these four guys were there to support. And they were there to receive fuel when it was pushed out the back of an airplane with parachutes, and then they would go gather it with their Hilux. They had a specially prepared boom on the front that would allow them to pick up a 55 gallon drum of fuel.
And they had them all staged there waiting for us and other expeditions to come through and help us refuel, and help us knock all the ice off the undercarriage, and give us a warm drink, and a little variety in terms of company and so on. So, there were just a lot of really cool things there about it. And like you said, this could probably be a series of podcasts unto itself.
Around the world and back again, Greg and his team accomplished a truly one of a kind feat that will stand the test of time, no doubt. Check out expeditions7.com for an in-depth coverage, photography, and detailed Land Cruiser specs from the entire adventure. Now, back home in Salt Lake City, Greg had a museum to build. The museum was probably founded in '05 or '06, so it predated the expedition by some years.
It originated in Tooela at Miller Motorsports Park, which was a 500 acre racetrack that our family developed in '05 and '06. And the first house for the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum was actually a repurposed building. I mentioned earlier that my dad bought his first dealership in 1979, that business grew very quickly, and about three or four years after he bought it, he actually needed to build a new facility just a few blocks from the original one.
And as you can imagine, the budgets were fairly tight. So, we did kind of a prefab building that he had clad the showroom in brick. But the rear portion where the service department, was just aluminum siding. And so, years later in about '05, '06, '07 it was time to knock that building down. I made the effort to save the service department, all the red iron, and we moved it out to the racetrack.
The Miller Motorsports Park was about 10,000 square feet and we housed the museum there for a while. And then, in 2015 we decided that we'd had enough fun throwing money in the black hole that was Miller Motorsports Park that we decided to not renew our lease with the county and walked away from that.
Which meant that I no longer had access to that building. So, I found the second location very near downtown Salt Lake City, and we were there from June of 2015 until September of 2021, so a little over six years. And then, in September of '21, we moved into the third home for the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum, which, to me, it's the coolest thing ever with the museum. It's another repurposed building. It was a steel foundry that was built in the 1930s.
And the first time I walked into it, the windows had a quarter inch of soot and slag on them. And you'd walk out the door after being in there for a minute with black on your face. It was terrible. And I said, you know, we can do something really special with this building. So, we spent about a year completely remodeling it.
Basically, everything with the walls was brand new, new floor, new ceiling, new roof, new lights, new you name it. And so, to me, I knew we were on to something when we had our soft opening in early September of this year and we didn't even have all the vehicles arranged yet. But we'd been closed long enough for the move that I thought, we're just going to open and just tell people, "Sorry about the mess.
Hope you enjoy your visit." And the very first patron that came through said, "Don't worry about the vehicles being disorganized. The building alone was worth the price of admission." And we get that comment quite a bit now, so it's pretty awesome. The Land Cruisers that took part in the expeditions are all on display, although getting much less action these days. Not surprisingly, one of them stands out as Greg's favorite piece in the museum, affectionately named Fernweh.
It's the VDJ78 that we've dubbed Fernweh. The nickname Fernweh, F-E-R-N-W-E-H, which is a German word that describes the emotion you feel when you stand on the dock in the harbor, and you see the ships coming and going, and you long to be on one of them. That's the way Fernweh was described to me. So, we thought that was an appropriate name for that car. As far as I know, it's the only vehicle that's ever been on all seven continents.
I've heard rumors that maybe a motorcycle had done it, but I have looked and looked, I've scoured the internet, and I don't have any evidence that that ever took place. If any listeners to this podcast have information on that, I'd love to hear about it. And so, that's the one that's been on all seven. There's a twin to it that we named Mateship, like friendship only using Australian mate, Mateship, that was on all six continents.
We opted not to spend the money to take it to Antarctica, so it's a close runner up. And then, there were three other vehicles, not counting the red Hilux that we drove across Antarctica, that were part of the E7 fleet. One's a VDJ76, one is a VDJ79, and one is actually an FJ62 - actually, I take it back, it's an HJ62 that has 79 series sheet metal on it. And that six cylinder engine just had too much trouble keeping up with all the V8s, so it only made a portion of the journey.
But all six of the E7 fleet are on display at the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum. We don't drive Fernweh. It's kind of a unique concept that occurred to me. There's so much equity in that car. And I remember the closer to home we got as we checked the box on another continent, I was thinking, what if this thing gets stolen? What if it gets wrecked? What if it catches on fire? What if it falls off the boat?
So, by the time we'd been to all seven continents, it was almost like I wanted to put this concrete vault around it and just ship it home. And so, I think, unfortunately, Fernweh has been retired for good. But, thankfully, enough other Land Cruisers in the fleet that we can go out and explore the world in that we're not going to be cramped. Fernweh is without question the most meaningful vehicle in the collection.
There are days when I think maybe there are others that give it a run for its money. Like, for example, we have the first Land Cruiser imported to the United States on display there. We have a Toyota Jeep, a 1953 Toyota Jeep, which is, obviously, before they were even called Land Cruisers that's there. And we have some 6,000 mile 40 series trucks and a number of others. But, you know, there are so many neat ones, but none of them were with me on all seven continents.
None of them as emotional as I can become when we're talking about Land Cruisers . None of them evoke the emotion or provided the opportunities to make friends, and learn, and grow like Fernweh did. Fernweh was like a magic carpet for me that I got to travel around the world in. I look at the collection in three categories. We have the OEM category, which is minimally modified. Then, we have the historically significant vehicles.
And then, we have the vehicles that were adapted for commercial application. So, as far as wartime vehicles go, we have three. One is a Japanese Defense Force Mega Cruiser. One is from Australia, it was a Norforce Troopy, HJ47. And then, the other one is from South America and it's a Bandeirante. It looks a lot like an FJ40. And those are all ex-military vehicles. Then, in addition to that, we have several different commercial vehicles.
We have one that was a maintenance vehicle for a television network. And it has a little, like, six inch cathode ray tube CRT monitor in it. And it has an antenna that comes up out of the ceiling and a bunch of 1980s electronic equipment. As I mentioned, we have some fire engines. We have an FJ5 tow truck, and a handful of others. And I probably have a few additional commercial applications that we're out of space, again, even after moving to the new building.
And I don't really have anywhere to store them now. So, unless it's just a super cool vehicle or a super good deal that I can't pass up, I'm just going to have to put the curation efforts on hold for a while, I think . I just need a building stretcher. I think Dan told me there's 99 under the roof and that's leaving room for two additional vehicles to arrive that are enroute. We have a couple that are still in storage at the old building. We have a rock crawler that's on 47 inch tires.
We got a barn door 55. And we have a really clean 62 over there. The ones that are enroute are an FJ24 fire engine, which that will give us a complete set. We'll have a 20 series, a 40 series, 50 series, 60 series, 70 series. We don't have an 80 series yet, so we may be going up a little bit short. The other one that's enroute is I had a friend that was in Saudi Arabia a while back and he was able to buy an FJ40 that had never been assembled.
It was still in a crate packed format that it arrived in when it left the factory from Japan. And it's going to go on display in the museum if we can ever get it all the way over here from Saudi Arabia. We've been trying for a few months. Hopefully, it's not too far away. We would leave it exactly as it's been its whole life. I think that would be one of the can't miss exhibitions of the entire visit. It will be so cool in that condition.
And there's enough other really cool 40 series Land Cruisers in there that I think those will probably scratch the itch for me. We have two vehicles in the collection that are not Land Cruisers. One is an FQ15, which many revere as a grandfather to the Land Cruiser. Produced in the late '40s and the '50s. The other one is a Hilux. And the Hilux is the one that was outfitted by Arctic Trucks out of Reykjavik, Iceland to make the actual traverse all the way across Antarctica.
It has 44 inch tires on it, swingarm suspension, 200 series transfer case. It has a crevasse bar on the front and a host of other features that make it suitable for travel in that environment. And so, the story behind that one is that we knew we had to take the 78 to Antarctica in order to check the Antarctica box and have that vehicle on all seven continents. But I also knew that I probably wasn't going to get back to Antarctica any time soon.
And that if there was an opportunity to drive to the South Pole and then eventually across the entire continent, this was going to be it. And so, we looked at modifying the Land Cruiser to make that journey. And in order to make that journey in a practical way, we would have had to have modified that 78 to an extent that it was irreversible. And I didn't want that vehicle to survive in that modified form, since it would have been such a limited part of its use.
So, what we wounded up doing was modifying it as far as we could and still have it be reversible so that it was suitable for some travel in Antarctica. But then, for the big journey, we opted for this Hilux, this big red truck that you see on the website, and it performed beautifully. And then, subsequently, we used that same truck to make the traverse across Greenland. I know the BJT is a 1953. It's one of a handful that were exported to Australia, imported in Australia.
And I think there's less than 20 that survived today. I would say that was probably the oldest in terms of production. The newest is we have a 2021 200 series Heritage Edition down there with zero miles, maybe three miles on it. It still smells brand new inside and probably will for a long time. It depends on how you define rare. You know, certain attributes can make a vehicle rare, whether it's how it was used, or modified, or what its history is and so on.
In terms of like you just want to go out and buy one, I would say that BJT is probably quite rare. There are a number that have super low miles. Like I said, there's some 40 series with 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 miles. There's a 55 with 11,000 miles. I actually have an 80 series with 80 miles on it. It came out of South America.
So, those are rare but in different ways. And then, my favorite, aside from Fernweh, is I love survivor trucks, unmolested, Unrepainted, engines matching, original equipment, and so on. We have a 1966 FJ45 pickup that was owned, spent about 50 years of its life in the Carmel, Monterey area of California. And the way the story was told to me, there was an elderly couple that bought it new. They drove it for 20 years.
And when he died, the widow sold it to another couple that owned it for about 25 years. And when he died, the widow sold it to the guy who flipped it to me. And that car still has the original registration in the glove box. It has the original tool kit that still has plastic on the wooden handled screwdrivers. The only thing that's been done to it is they reupholstered the interior, and they even did that with the correct stitching and material. And so, it's absolutely gorgeous.
Like, when I get to the museum, it's the one that I walk in and look at. I want to give it a hug and just say we're back together. You know, it's kind of cool. I love it. I would say the most expensive vehicle in the collection is an ICON. Many of your listeners are probably familiar with Jonathan Ward, an ICON out of Chatsworth, California. Jonathan's a good friend and a master craftsman.
And he takes a 1970 FJF40 and sets it on a modern frame, with modern drivetrain and suspension, and then all the stuff to make it pretty with the aluminum tub, and all the fancy upholstery, and so on. And so, I was in Mexico a few years ago when I got a text from Jonathan and he said, "Here's one of the ICONs. They don't come up for sale very often, but it's an FJ43. It's a four door. It's the good stuff. Powder coated and blast at. I think it had 2,300 miles on it.
If you want it, here's the price." And I about fell off my chair. And he said, "Think about it, let me know tomorrow." And, like, 7:00 in the morning, he called and said, "Are you in or not? If you don't want it, I got six people kicking my door down, so I got to know now." And I told him I'd take it. And it's only appreciated ever since. They're still going up in value. And I don't know how much longer Jonathan is going to be doing what he's doing.
He's had a great run and he's got to be getting tired. He's worked so hard for so long. But if the day ever comes where he decides to quit building those, I just think those things are going to go through the roof in value. I would say that every Land Cruiser has a story. And that story makes every Land Cruiser unique.
I'm thinking right now of one owner, 1971 FJ40, that was owned by the a gentleman who was the sheriff in Butte County, California. And when the Paradise fires came through a couple of years ago, he raced home to try to save it. And it had a dead battery. All he wanted to do was push it over a little hill into a pond on his lot. And he's a guy in his mid-60s and he didn't have enough strength to push it up that little hill by itself. And it burned to the ground.
I mean, it's gorgeous in its own way. It's a sad loss for him, but it's a great reminder of how quickly we can lose stuff that matters to us in an instant. So, cherish it while you can. But there's one. And then, 30 yards from that is a brand new plastic wrapper still on the seat 2021 200 Series Heritage Edition Land Cruiser. So, they're all unique. They're all beautiful in their own way. As far as I know. They all get along pretty well. I'm not really aware of one being too jealous of another.
If they feel that way, they pretty much keep it to themselves. We have one rock crawler that, I think, is related to Christine, Stephen King's Christine. It actually ran over me one time and pinned me between it and another crawler. And I had the tire of that one on my chest and the big tire of the other one on my back. And I yelled to the person driving it, "Back up. Back up. Back up." And they got it off of me before I passed out.
But that's probably as close as we have to any of them being possessed. A theme we've all heard on the show and elsewhere in the auto industry are the smells, right? Whether it's a new car or a flashback inducing waft of nostalgia, our sense of smell, low key, plays a big part in our emotional connection to cars. Josh Brooks from episode 38, Starlet Restoration Story, recalled as much.
Running a museum of pre-owned, pre-loved, and well driven adventure vehicles, Greg has a keen sense for the same. You know, that smell is prevalent in the museum. The thing that's so interesting is, different vehicles have different smells, largely depending on which market they came from. So, for example, JDM vehicles, whether they're 40s or 90s or whatever, they smell like Japan. And Australian vehicles smell very different. And South American vehicles smell very different.
It's really unique, but there's a pattern to it for sure. It's one thing to have a Land Cruiser that you put on display, but if you're trying to source exciting specimens from around the world, how do you actually find them and acquire them? Originally, we curated the collection off the list that Kurt and I developed on our drive to the middle of Wyoming. And we knew that we needed an FJ40, and we needed an FJ43, and a 60, and so on.
So, we would always just buy the best specimen of a particular model that we could get our hands on. And then, if we found a better model later, we would buy it and theoretically sell off the old one so that we were always improving. And so, to answer your question now, in the early years, we were proactively seeking a lot of these cars.
At some point, I don't know exactly when it was, probably in about 2016, I would guess, we kind of hit a tipping point where there was enough notoriety to the museum. And the effort that was being made to preserve this Land Cruiser Heritage that the cars or the vehicles actually started finding us. For example, when this BJT hit the market, my phone blew up. I probably had ten text messages, "Hey, have you seen what hit the market today? " And that was true of others.
Like, I would say, the last 12 or 15 acquisitions that we've made have been owners of those vehicles reaching out to us saying, "I'm ready to part with my baby. I want it to go to a good home. Are you interested?" And that's a real honor for us to be thought of in that regard. One of the last acquisitions that we made, probably three or four acquisitions ago, was one owner, 1966 FJ45 LB Wagon that had been with the same family since it was purchased
new. And the owner was a bit odd and a bit squirrelly. And he only wanted cash. And I have lost deals before because owners have only wanted cash. And I've said, "I'm not going to give you a cash. That's just not the way I roll." And they said, "Okay. Then no deal" and "Okay. Have a nice day." This was a one owner LB, I wasn't going to let this one get away, so I agreed. And you never know, you're going to a stranger's home with a big wad of cash.
Of course, I had a lot of friends, "Hey, here's where I am. And if I don't call you in ten minutes, send the cavalry in and so on." And, luckily, it turned out to be a nothing burger. It was a nice visit. And he told me a lot of stories about growing up with that car and stuff. And, now, it's sitting there in the museum bringing a lot of joy to a lot of people. And what about actually transporting them to the museum site?
The logistics of this becomes seriously impressive when you hear how far some of the Land Cruisers have traveled to be put on display. We wondered, which of the Land Cruisers on display has traveled the furthest. The 76 that we bought in South Africa is probably a contender. But one truck in Australia that may be a contender, that's the VDJ79. And we've bought a couple of other out of Australia, a few others actually out of Australia.
So, I would say it's got to be one of the Australian or the South African truck. The museum is ten years old this year and still going strong. We asked Greg, what does the future hold? More Land Cruisers, right? There are still a number of vehicles that I'd like to procure for the museum, and that doesn't really even include a lot of the historically significant ones that I'd probably be more interested in if I have the room.
The good news is, we have room to expand the building to the north of our existing building. It's just a matter of financial resources to get that done. So, as far as the future goes, I want to continue to build out the collection with meaningful vehicles that help fulfill our mission, which is to preserve and celebrate the history of the Toyota Land Cruiser and to inspire adventure. A gigantic thank you to today's guest, Greg Miller and the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum.
If you want to learn more about their work or even plan a visit for yourself, well, I'll let Greg take it from here. Our website is landcruiserhm.com, as in Land Cruiser Heritage Museum. We're also on Facebook and Instagram under Land Cruiser HM - actually, that might be Land Cruiser Heritage Museum on those. But if you just do a search, you'll find it. And we are located in Salt Lake City. Our address is 476 West 600 North. Google Maps knows where we are. Apple Maps knows where we are.
So, if you're ever in town, punch us in, we'd love to say hello. Thank you everyone so much for listening today. Land Cruisers hold a special place in my heart, as I said at the beginning of the episode. I have three of them. I have a 200 series. I have a 100 series. And we have an 80. And my husband loves working on them with the kids. And if you can make it, please go visit the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum.
I know we're going to try to make it as a family. On behalf of Kelsey and myself, Tyler, thank you so much for listening to Toyota Untold. This podcast is brought to you by Toyota Motor Sales, USA Inc. and may not be reproduced or redistributed in whole or in part without prior permission of Toyota. Modifying your vehicle with non-genuine Toyota parts can negatively affect your warranty, safety performance, and street legality.
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