This 40-Year-Old Toyota Land Cruiser Has Covered Just 5000 Miles

There’s something simultaneously tragic and wonderful about a classic off-roader with almost no mileage: tragic because it’s never had the amazing adventures it deserved, and wonderful because now you can have them.

We stumbled across this Bring A Trailer auction for a 1978 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 with mere hours left on the listing. It’s in original, unrestored condition and has covered just 5265 miles from new thanks to a massively sad turn of events.

Originally sold in Wyoming, according to the ad, it was put into storage after just one summer’s use. The owner, a wholesale carpet distributor, had built a carpet-lined but fully-enclosed wooden crate for it and mounted it high on a wall inside his warehouse. Out of sight but oh-so-visible, it was said to be his motivation for working hard enough to one day be able to drive the thing around all of America’s National Parks.

He died in 2000 before any of that could happen, and we might just need to take a break to get something out of our eyes. What’s almost worse is that his kids simply sold it back to the original seller, probably not realising how special a find it was.

The new owner, a collector who has had it for 18 years, has added about 2000 miles to the odometer. Its Rustic Green paint is in great condition, the chrome hubcaps are still in place and the original disc brakes are apparently doing their job. The only concessions to the ravages of time have been a new set of tyres, a battery and a fuel filter.

Needless to say, it’s bloody lovely. Loud, slow, uncomfortable and unrefined, but absolutely fantastic. Bidding on the auction had reached $100,000 at the time of writing, so we’re positive this will just go back into another collection. Aaaand now we’re sad again.

Source: MotorAuthority