World-class Cruiser A restifi ed 60-Series that will make your jaw drop

The Montauk Monster

This beautifully restifi ed 60-Series Land Cruiser wants to be seen as a refi ned workhorse for your weekend retreat on Long Island. Unlike the actual Montauk Monster, however, its classic lines mean everyone knows exactly what it is…

Words: Tom Alderney Pictures: Legacy Overland

The Montauk Monster

For many of us, the 80-Series Toyota Land Cruiser remains the defi nitive off-roader. Big, strong, luxurious, sorted with a chassis, axles, transfer case and difflocks everywhere, not to mention supreme build quality, it ticked every known box then invented some new boxes and ticked them too. It was just unbelievably good.

Or perhaps it wasn’t actually unbelievable at all. If you were already a seasoned Land Cruiser watcher when the J80 came out, you’d have known that throughout the 1980s, the Japanese giant had been building the J60 – a similarly proportioned wagon which, for its time, revolutionised the idea of what a 4x4 should be.

The 60-Series was nowhere near as posh as the 80. However it was a sign of things to come. In the last couple of years of production, Toyota created the FJ62 model, complete with a VX model designation which for decades going forward came to be its shorthand for top-spec luxury.

In this case, top-spec luxury included electric windows, power locks and a dashboard that didn’t look and feel like it had been taken straight from a light commercial vehicle.

Built in Japan (and Venezuela, for local markets only – ‘el Macho,’ as the Cruiser is known down there, has a reputation that goes beyond legendary), the FJ62 was the fi rst true foretaste of Land Cruisers to come – the 80, 100 and 200-Series all went on to fl y the Toyota fl ag in the

There’s still a distinctly eighties’ vibe to the 60-Series’ cabin, but with a modern vibe on top. Its original architecture is still there, however it has been remade with double-DIN electrics allowing the addition of a head unit running Apple CarPlay. Legacy Overland built a bespoke air-con system for the vehicle, too, and even changed the colour of the lower dash plastics from grey to brown to match the vehicle’s new overall look

‘The interior is important because, as Legacy Overland points out, the FJ62 has big windows – so passers-by get a very good view into its cabin’

UK and beyond. But that original model is a very rare sight here itself – even rarer, in fact, than the world-beating 40-Series, which never offi cially came here at all.

So when you see the one pictured here, it might not come as a huge surprise that it’s based a long way from the UK. The steering wheel being on the left might be a bit of a tell-tale sign. We were going to say that same about the parched, sandy ground, but that could be more or less anywhere in England right now.

Mainly, anyway, it’s the fact that it exists at all. You just don’t see FJ62s in these parts. And you certainly don’t see them in such a pristine condition as the one you’re looking at now.

As is normally the case when a classic 4x4 looks as new as this, the story involves more than just a healthy diet. In this case, there was a full restoration – complete with some tasteful mods to bring the grand old lady into the modern era.

The job was carried out by Legacy Overland, an American company which specialises in keeping classic 4x4s alive by reimagining them as new vehicles. Not ‘new’ as in drearily anodyne and painfully devoid of character or identity, though; the idea is that this is what true off-road legends like the FJ60 (the company also specialises in the 40-Series, Defender, Range Rover Classic and G-Wagen) would be like if they were still being built today.

In this case, the FJ60 still has its leaf-sprung, live-axled suspension. All of it refurbished, of course, but wonderfully original. Your own instinct, perhaps honed on a lifetime of hybrid Land Rovers, might be that converting it to coils would make it that much cushier, however the traditional American solution has always been to stick with cart springs but make them better.

The 31x10.50R15 Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx tyres at the ends of the axles, which are mounted on a refurbished set of Toyota’s own period sixspoke steels, are turned by the original 3F-E petrol engine. A straight six unit displacing 3955cc, this was only used on the FJ62 from 1988 onwards – marking out the particular vehicle seen here as a late one. These days, you’d expect a 4.0-litre unit to come up with more than 155bhp and 220lbf. ft, but it was just fi ne for the FJ62 and its low compression meant it’s capable of putting in a quarter of a million miles or more before needing a rebuild.

Though a rebuild is exactly what this one got, with all new internals, gaskets, fl ywheel and so on, it’s still original. So too are the gearbox and transfer case, which joined the engine in getting a full rebuild – and did the brakes and power steering. Anything that wasn’t renewed was rebuilt (radiator, pumps, fi lter housings and so on) and the whole wiring loom was stripped out and reinstalled from scratch to suit the demands of modern life – which in this case include running a custom air conditioning system and double-DIN Pioneer audio with Bluetooth, four door-mounted JBL speakers and an Excalibur amp.

Elsewhere in the cabin, the original front seats and rear bench were retrimmed in leather – as were the upper dash, lower side walls and sun visors. The roof lining was replaced by alcantara fabric, meanwhile, and the grab handles, shifter boots and handbrake gaiter all match the rest of the cabin. So too do the door cards, handles and pockets, which are trimmed out in Monza Collection full-grain beige hide with brown details.

This is important because, as Legacy Overland says, the FJ62 has big windows, so passers-by

You do see old Land Cruisers in a much worse state of rust, but this one had defi nitely started on the one-way trip before Legacy Overland brought it back. The chassis was looking very crusty indeed, the fl oor and bulkhead were starting to perforate and the doors were particularly well gone. Cue a total stripdown, allowing all the metal to be made good before the body was repainted in a desert sand hue that manages to look at once original and also modern. The engine, too, looked pretty hideous inside and out, and like the vehicle’s structure it was taken right down to every individual item before being remanufactured from scratch. Similarly, the axles, brakes, suspension, steering and so on was all comprehensively renewed, with extensive use of anodised hardware helping protect it from going the same way again in the future

The 3F-E engine’s low compression means it’s capable of putting in a quarter of a million miles or more before needing a rebuild

get a very good view into its cabin. ‘Light and airy tan leather is fl anked by German weave carpet throughout. The plastic parts were restored and converted from grey to brown to match the interior design palette. A classy wooden steering wheel rounds things out for that oh-so-Montauk feel.’

We have to admit that we needed to look up Montauk to fi nd out what that reference means. The place is a traditional Long Island fi shing village in the Hamptons, apparently, though it also gives its name to the Montauk Project, one of those wonderfully swivel-eyed conspiracy theories that reckons the government was using an air base there to contact extra-terrestrials, stage faked moon landings and experiment with teleportation and time travel. The Netfl ix series Stranger Things was inspired by the stories, which would be easier to dismiss as arch crankery if it weren’t for the fact that in 2008, the body of a large but unidentifi able creature appeared on the beach alongside the town centre one night and, with no-one able to agree on what it was, because known simply as the Montauk Monster.

So, that’s the strange history of Montauk for you, distilled into one paragraph. And here you were expecting just to read about a particularly nice Toyota Land Cruiser. Which, before you ask, is not the actual Montauk Monster – if for no other reason than that everyone can tell exactly what it is. ‘Put on your linen clothes and get ready for the New England lobster boil,’ concludes Adventure Overland, ‘cos this refi ned adventure luxury build means business.’ Couldn’t have put it better ourselves.