From the November 2016 issue
SUVs are recent entrants to the collector-car marketplace. Here are some of the best:
Two Toyotans
Anyone who went to high school during the Dazed and Confused era knows there were two things that the jocks and stoners agreed on: the one cool weed-smoking cheerleader and the Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser. But as the jocks and stoners grew up, made some money, and wanted their memories back, better-than-new Land Cruisers started showing up at big-time auctions. Prices soared, with some FJs hitting six figures.
If that prices you out of an FJ40, try looking for the next big thing, the first-generation Toyota 4Runner. Its back story is just as interesting as Toyota’s Jeep clone’s, as the 4Runner started out as the Hilux pickup, the darling of insurgents on multiple continents. The infamous “chicken tax” of 1963 placed punitive tariffs on imported small pickups, but, with the addition of a removable shell and two seats in the bed, it became the 4Runner sport-utility vehicle.
Brilliant. Toyota 4Runners look great and last forever in kind climates, where good ones show up on Craigslist for around $10,000.
Grand Rovers
After building the Liberty transport ships that aided in winning World War II, Henry J. Kaiser unwittingly helped create the luxury SUV by merging his Kaiser Motors with the original Jeep maker, Willys-Overland, in 1953. The first Jeep Wagoneer arrived a decade later, and it would take two more decades for it to gain the “Grand” prefix and all the accompanying amenities that make the appellation true. Like the FJ40, the few remaining good ones are pricey.
It’s a different story with the classic Range Rover. Where the wood-sided Wagoneer is high kitsch, the original 1970 Land Rover Range Rover is a clean and timeless piece of 20th-century industrial art, and nice ones are still dirt cheap, trading in the $10,000 range.
In truth, both the Grand Wagoneer and the Range Rover were considered fairly crappy vehicles. The assembly plants for these two might be 3800 miles apart, but both were thrown together with a similar indifference. But if you want to look like landed gentry, a Nissan Murano won’t do.
Raiders of the Lost Trucks
Badly put together though they may have been, Land Rovers had style, especially the Defender 90 and 110, so named for their wheelbase measurements in (rounded-up) inches. North America got legal 90s for three model years—1994, ’95, and ’97—and the best of them can easily top $100,000. Importing earlier models from Europe under the 25-year rule is risky, with Defenders tending to be worn-out or fraudulently backdated. The feds are wise to this.
The great secret here is that you can get some of the Defender’s style and off-road capability combined with Japanese reliability in the first-generation Mitsubishi Montero (also sold as the Dodge Raider in two-door trim). Mitsu even aped the Defender’s LWB and SWB body styles. While the roof might not come off the two-door, neither will this Paris-Dakar winner strand you in the middle of the Mojave. About $7000 buys one in very good condition, though some parts are getting scarce.
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