Andy Budge’s 1964 Toyota Land Cruiser 40-Series Soft-Top: Toyota’s Australian Heritage
Andy Budge has been into Toyotas, especially 40-Series models, for many years. Quite some time ago, he restored an FJ45. But the car you see here took him a decade to build. ‘I wanted an early example and specifically one made in 1964, the year I was born.’ This car is essentially a homage to his father who had a long association with Cruisers, having bought his first one in 1973 or 1974 when Andy accompanied him on the drive home from Perth to Kalgoorlie.
Image: Tim Budge
He had been conducting a national search for years before he found what he wanted in his home state. ‘I was in Bali in October 2013 when my phone pinged,’ he says. ‘The condition wasn’t great. The previous owner had used it to launch a boat and if you drew a line from behind the rear door to the rear sills it was badly corroded.’ The rear sills, floor pan and other components had to be created from scratch.
The Cruiser was utterly original though, a matching numbers vehicle with the original soft top, albeit in a very patched-up, tired condition.
Image: Tim Budge
The restoration took a decade, beginning in early 2014 – to call it a huge job would be an understatement. Andy was sourcing parts from around the world, some of which were rubbish, he reckons. ‘I was fortunate when I went to the US to see a guy in Chicago who had a press and was able to fabricate early floor panels.’ All the while, the brief was to keep the Cruiser as original as possible.
Early Land Cruisers are now precious and highly-sought and their role in not just Australia’s automotive history but in the country’s development is unique: they literally helped build the nation. (It’s fascinating to realise that at the end of World War Two in 1945, only 80,000 private motor vehicles were operating in Japan, compared with more than 850,000 in Australia!)
Image: Tim Budge
Leslie (later Sir Leslie) Thiess formed Thiess Holdings Limited in 1951 and it became a public company in 1958 after Thiess had secured an $18 million (hundreds of millions in today’s coin!) contract to build a 14.4-kilometre tunnel from Tumut Ponds Dam for the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority.
Months after the scheme commenced, Leslie Thiess bought his first Toyota commercial vehicle, a six-cylinder FJ25 Land Cruiser utility. His first encounter with the brand came during a trip to Japan some years earlier.
Image: Tim Budge
Pedr Davis interviewed a retired Thiess executive for his 1999 book, The Long Run: Toyota, the first 40 years in Australia:
We had some problems with the vehicles we put into the Snowy Mountains fleet, mostly front axle and gearbox troubles. But the conditions were very hard and difficult. And if anyone could break a vehicle, it would be a Thiess construction crew.
We had Land Rovers, Willys and Austin Champs – and they broke too. But the difference was that, when we had trouble, the Japanese immediately came out. They didn’t hesitate and despatched engineers who lived with us on the site until the problems were rectified. They’d send the broken pieces to Japan for analysis to rectify the trouble at source.
It was this kind of dedication that later saw Toyota send Japanese engineers to live in California and adopt an American lifestyle during the long evolution of the original Lexus LS400 luxury sedan, which made its debut in 1990.
For at least two decades after the end of war widespread anti-Japanese animus persisted. There is no doubt that it was through the diligence – and charm – of Leslie Thiess that Toyota became established in Australia, but it would not be until later that Japanese passenger vehicle would begin to appear on our roads among the Holdens, Falcons and Valiants. ‘It was particularly difficult to find dealers who were prepared to handle Toyota’, recalled Thiess decades later.
But by demonstration and persuasion, our sales representatives started to create an interest in the Land Cruiser. In July 1959, three months after obtaining the franchise, our general manager reported satisfactory progress. We had sold 14 vehicles and had orders for a further eight.
From little things, big things do indeed grow. Pedr Davis reports that 69 Toyotas were sold here in 1959, of which 36 went to Queensland. One Crown sedan was registered in Melbourne.
Image: Tim Budge
In those days the demand for 4WD trucks was confined to construction companies and primary producers. In 1960 the combined sales of Land Rover, Willys, Nissan Toyota 4WDs was some 2000 units in a market of 237,000 passenger cars and nearly 60,000 commercials. And nobody could have predicted that within the first quarter of the following century, Australia’s strongest-selling vehicles would be all-wheel-drive utes!
Andy Budge was resolute in his purpose. West Australian rules demand that before being registered even old cars must be re-engineered to modern – or more modern – standards. He bought his Cruiser on full registration and kept it that way for eight years during which it did not drive a metre – that alone is some investment!
Image: Tim Budge
Much of the joy he experienced in this long process was the companionship shared with what might be called the classic Cruiser community. These people, says Andy, are incredibly respectful of the sub-brand’s heritage ‘You have to earn the respect of the community and then the assistance flows. There are many chapters to my car, let me tell you. I can look at any component and there’s a human connection.’
Delightfully, Andy has made quite a big deal out of sourcing accessories – ‘trinkets’, he says – as advertised in Christmas dealer bulletins and suchlike back in the day. ‘I’ve glammed it up a bit,’ he reckons, adding hubcaps, reversing lights, a pintle tow ball, locking petrol cap and fog lights complete with the proper (very rare) early 1960s dashboard switch.
The Cruiser is period correct in every detail, even down to the regulator and original style horn relay. Andy is not interested in driving it faster than about 90km/h. Even though the gearbox has three speeds, he says it more like a two-speed because there is no synchro on the very low first ratio.
And how does a perfectly restored 1964 Toyota Land Cruiser perform offroad? Andy has no intention of finding out; that would be beside the point. The FJ40 lives most its time in a Carcoon. He has a late model fully kitted-out HiLux as his daily driver, and this Toyota can go almost anywhere. A pretty good pair of machines to showcase Toyota’s Australian heritage.
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