From Jody Rhone: "Recent purchase and partial trade for our 77 fj40 we’d had for 20 Years. It came from western New Mexico, can’t remember the town. The car lot in Santa Fe had had it on the lot for about 2 hours when we stopped and bought it.
We’d been looking for several years for an unrestored FJ40 in better shape than our 77. The 77 was in need of serious body work and we weren’t interested in it having a new perfect paint job. But the body holes were quite large.
We’d said a few years earlier we’d keep it till it died, but it never died always cranked up even after being parked for 8 months each winter. My next door neighbor in Aspen ended up buying it when he heard I’d promised it in trade for the 78 in Santa Fe.
The beautiful thing about the 78 is the olive brown color which was only offered in 78 and the fine vintage quality of the paint. It’s old and dry. Runs really well but needs some springs and a few other things. Eventually."
Great looking Fj40! I agree with your asessment of the color and condition.
ReplyDeleteI arrived in Aspen in 1974 along with 5 buddies in a friend's FJ40. It was a slow ride from Muscle Shoals, Ala, but with the amount of weed we were smoking a Lamborghini
wouldn't have gotten us there any faster.
I eventually moved there and helped a good friend, Steve Coolidge, build a cabin on the Midnight Mine Road. He also had an FJ40. In winter we plowed about a half mile after every storm by dragging an 8X8 timber behind his FJ. Two of us would stand on the 8X8 and hang on to the body, closely followed by Steve's donkey who found the whole affair amusing and good exercise. I happened to be staying in the cabin when an avalanche roared by his house and swept the FJ far into a field below. Sadly, it was a total loss.