This could be the start of a wonderful friendship

This all began when I was working on my Master's degree. My friend, Jon, had an early 80's Land Cruiser. After a few trips, some off-roading, and powering through some big snows, I new I had to have a Land Cruiser at some point in my life. So over the years, I'vr kept my eyes open but I never had the time, money, or space to own a Land Cruiser.

I've never been a "car guy." I've always looked at cars as a way to get from Point-A to Point-B. However, an FJ60 has a special place in my heart. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my family came to visit. My dad and I were talking about his 41 Ford an he asked me when I was going to get a Land Cruiser. As luck would have it, I had seen an FJ62 for sale online. I showed him the photo, "You should go look at that" he said. As my entire family took a look at it, they all said the same thing. So I arranged to go to Chicago and bring the FJ62 home to look over. The owner's mother lived nearby and if I didn't want it, he wanted to store it at her place for the winter. This was a great truck with one problem. Basically the entire roofline was rusted, all the way through in a couple of spots. It was too much for me to tackle. However, at the same time, an FJ80 was put up for sale in my neighborhood. So I took a look at that too. It wasn't an FJ60, but it was still a Land Cruiser. This one had way too many mechanical problems, so I passed. It was crazy, I had wanted a Land Cruiser for more than 20 years and in one day I said "no" to two of them. I decided to just be patient and not go looking right now. There were other, "grown-up things" to think about.

That all took place just after Thanksgiving 2010. As my wife and I drove to my parent's home for the Christmas holiday weekend, I mentioned to her that I was planning to pay off a bill or two then have a friend in Tucson start looking for me. About an hour after I said that we rounded the corner to my folk's house. It was dark outside and many of the houses were lit up with Christmas lights. There, back-lit by Christmas lights just 5 doors down from my parent's house, was the silhouette of an FJ60. I pointed it out to my wife and continued on. Later that evening, I mentioned it to my dad. "Oh yea, that's been for sale for a couple of weeks" he said! After giving him the appropriate amount of grief for not letting me know the second he saw it, we stopped to look at it. The next morning, Christmas Eve, I called the owner and asked to look at it. I drove it, crawled around underneath it, checked the body for rust, etc. He and I negotiated a price and then something occurred to me. I'm 200 miles from home, without a checkbook, and it's Christmas, all the banks are closed! Luckily, my sister & wife stepped up and wrote a couple of checks for my Land Cruiser! So I picked up my FJ60 on Christmas day, it just needed a big red bow! What a thrill to own this FJ60. I named her Elsie, think LC for Land Cruiser.