The Landcruiser.

Getting ahead of myself, but I currently have a Landcruiser.
Not a nice new flashy thing, but a good old solid truck.


It is a 1985 FJ62 top of the range in its day.
I has a 4 ltr straight six engine (3F) with a carby on top.
It is a manual 5 speed gearbox, with dual range, and a LSD rear in it, which strangely for a Toyota still works????
It is pretty much standard, the only real changes being a small suspension lift which I installed, and electronic points in the distributor which are amazing! The truck starts easier, runs smoother, and is just a bit nicer to drive - and I don't have to adjust the points every three months as I had to with the old mechanical points.
We have not used it heaps - time just gets in the way, but I do like to find some dirt when I can, but I don't get to find "Dirt Every Day" Fred - I would love to, but it just doesn't happen unfortunately.

But as you can see here, it happens occasionally.


The photos never show it as rough as it was, but that hill we are about to go down was fairly steep and uneven - not at all a challenge for the Cruiser, but it was more than a 2WD could handle.

One thing the Cruiser did do to us was let us down near a place called Cocklebiddy - if you look it up you will find that it has a normal population of 8 and it is a Petrol Station, some accommodation for the workers, and some motel units, and miles away from anywhere.


That was our tent set up while we tried to figure out how to get a broken 4x4 1200km back home.
Blown head gasket.
Four days later my brothers arrived towing another 4x4 on a car trailer so we could tow our trailer back with that one while they towed our Cruiser back on the car trailer.
It really was the only way to get back home with our car and trailer from there.

My life is punctuated by car breakdowns, and even Toyotas are not immune to my powers!

Lada Niva

The next car that became part of our life was really as a result of the totally inappropriate nature of the Nissan 720.

The Subaru taught us that off-roading can be fun and a 4x4 can get you places that regular cars can't.

The 720 taught me that there was a real difference between what the Subaru could do (it was totally standard) and what a purpose built off-road 4x4 was capable of.

And actually, we traded both the Subaru and the 720 for the Niva, and if memory serve me correctly we even gained about $1000 out of that deal. One the few wins for me.

The Niva totally captured us for 4x4, and taught me how to take jokes as well.

Ours was actually more of a beige than the orangey-yellow of the one in this pic but it was the same body style.

We fairly quickly replaced the old worn-out road tyres with Pirelli Scorpions, which made a big difference, but it was this one in which we took a few off-road adventures, and in which I took almost every opportunity to drive on dirt.

In the Perth region we have a lot of opportunity for sand tracks and beach running, and also for some bush track work, but I have never gotten into full on rock work. Too much chance of damage for my liking. I want to be driving, not fixing if I possibly can. 

But our new little family could all fit in this thing and I found out that it was actually not bad off-road. Actually, this car taught me more about off-roading than any other I think.

The Lada Niva was the butt of joke after joke in Australia, partly because they had some quality control and reliability issues apparently. But mine was faultless - never let us down.

It took some time for me to figure out how to use the thing off-road, because it was so different to the Subaru, and I had not really had much off-roading with the 720.
So first of all, I had to unlearn the bad practices that I learned with the Subaru - things like rushing any situation where it looked sticky. The Subaru just bounced over stuff if you hit it hard enough. But the Niva had the clearance and large wheels to go over things.

So I finally had a vehicle where I felt I could get into some serious off-road stuff.
But even that involved some learning. We had not up to this point even considered letting the tyres down, because the Subaru's tyres were already so small that I didn't want to lose any more clearance.

So I drove everywhere on road pressures for a long time. Spent a week driving around a place called Black Point on near to road pressures after my compressor died the first night pumping up our air mattress. We drove into our campsite on road pressures and I knew it was over 100km to the nearest petrol station to pump the tyres up again so we let them down a little bit, but not much.

I did however figure out during that trip that the Niva was a serious weapon off road once you got it right.
Low range is good and low, but it needs to be as the motor is based on a FIAT design and therefore it loves a rev. We dropped into low range at the first boggy section on the way in and it stayed there for the whole week. The tracks were such that about 50kph was the maximum you could do, and low range top gear was easy at that speed.

In fact I found that if anything was a bit sticky in any situation, find a gear lower than you think and give it more revs than you think and it is just about right. Of course that doesn't work for rock crawling, but that is not really my thing anyway.

It was great off-road, fun to drive, and it was a four seater, so it was going to suit us for a little while - at least until the kids outnumbered the seats.
Actually, I wish I never sold that one, and would love to get another.
But that is a sentence that I have uttered about a number of cars in my life.

Nissan 720 4x4

Well, this one was a mistake to be honest.
The one I bought was prettier looking than this one - bull bar at the front, roll bars in the tray, graphics down the side, and wide tyres on white sunraysia style wheels.
It looked like a gem - but underneath that pretty paint and window dressing was a car mostly held together by rust.
I was so taken by the look of it, and always wanted a "truck" that I didn't bother to look below that nice paintjob.

It was even more of a mistake when I realised that being a single cab ute it wouldn't fit a baby capsule - and we had just gained our first little boy.
I know this sounds stupid, but I measured it and the capsule would fit between the seats in the front - so with that taken into account, I bought it.
Got it home and showed it off to my lovely wife, who said let's put this capsule into it and go off road then".
Proud as punch and looking forward to many days of off-road fun, I fitted the capsule in and we both hopped in. then I went to put it into reverse gear.
It was a floor shift.
1st gear was no problem.
In fact 3rg gear and 5th gear would not have been a problem - but anything south of the neutral line was impossible - the capsule wouldn't let the gearstick move that far back.

So it was not only a rustbucket under the paint, but it was a totally useless car for us - it was only good for getting me to work and for me to off-road alone - but I don't like to off-road without my wife.
It was a total waste of time.
But not bad off road, for what it was.

1984 Mazda 929

After a while of being married and my wife had gotten her drivers licence, we decided that it was time to get another car.
Something nicer this time.
When we looked around, we found a nice car that fitted the bill - I like rear wheel drive.\; my wife wanted something that was nice to be in and nice to drive.

We came across a white Mazda 929 sedan which we could "sort of" afford.

This was one nice car - light grey velour trim inside, electric windows, air-conditioning, fully independent suspension.
The downside (for me) was only a 2.0ltr 4 cyl engine - but it actually went quite well.

We still had the Subaru, so if we needed to go to different places my wife took the Mazda and I took the Subi. (The Subi was still fun, but, well..........)

But the Mazda was definitely the nicest thing we had ever owned - the FIAT 2300 was nice, but way older and so it didn't have all the mod cons....

The strongest memory I have of this car was when my wife was pregnant - I had gone to a men's breakfast at church, but half way through we got a phone call at church - this was before mobile phones - and my wife was really sick. Now you have to understand that we had already had several miscarriages, and when I found out that she had gotten suddenly sick, I knew that she would be devastated at the possibility - as I was.
I left immediately and raced - literally raced - home.
I was weaving through the traffic at high speed - and when I say high speed I mean that I saw the speedo on that Mazda hit 180kph - the fastest I have ever driven (even to this day) - and that speed was on a single lane each way road - I must have seriously scared some people, and I looking back it was so stupid.
I would be no use to her dead.
But she needed me, and I needed to be with her.

I got home safely - I have no idea how - the Lord kept the traffic out of my way I guess.
And as it turned out she was very sick, but it wasn't the baby - and our first son was born a few months later.

But that Mazda got me home safely, and although I was incredibly stupid, the car was faultless in its operation - I don't remember thinking that it was out of control at any stage - but in fact, I don't remember thinking anything but about my love and my baby.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, but that's what you do for your family....

1977 Subaru 4x4 part 2

That old Subi was a great thing for us - down to three bears to watch a mate surf, taking the short cut dirt track back to home instead of taking the long way around paved roads - it was a gazetted road so it was not actually illegal.
We saw an echidna along that track one day.

So many trips around the place and onto as many tracks as I could find.

We went on a "youth and young adults camp" one time, which was supposed to be camping in the bush - we decided to put a mattress into the back and slept in the car. The funniest part of that was that the hosting Pastor of the camp didn't realise we were married - I am not sure how he missed out on that piece of information, but we found out later that when he saw us both get into the car for evening, he just wasn't sure what to do - but his wife cleared up the misunderstanding, and he relaxed.

Our first anniversary also has a story with this car - We went on family camp down in Busselton, but while we were there, one of the core plugs in the engine blew out and we cooked the little thing before I realised it.
This was half way through camp and I had booked us into a nice hotel after the camp and we were going to spend a week in the area for our anniversary.
Well, one dead car put an end to that. We ended up going home in the back of our friend's ute at the end of the camp, and I used the money intended for our hotel stay to go and get the car a day later.
The trip back was great fun actually, because we rugged up in a sleeping bag in the back of the ute and watched the stars for the trip back. It was a lovely way to travel really - nice and cuddly.

But the next day I hired a car trailer and my brother and I went down to Busso and picked up the car.
The problem was that it was our anniversary that day.
I drove my brother mad getting him to stop at every petrol station so that I could try to buy a card and some small gift, but almost none of them had any cards at all, and none of them had anniversary cards, let alone a nice one.
So our anniversary day was ruined and I couldn't even find a card - in those days shops here were shut Saturday afternoons and some just didn't open at all.

So our first anniversary was ruined by this car, and to make it worse, my wife thought I had forgotten our anniversary. I think in fact she still thinks that deep down, although I have tried to explain it over and over.

I didn't forget, but the Anniversary present I had organised was no longer affordable or do-able, and try as I might, I could neither afford nor even find anything reasonable to give her.

I now know that even a nice bar of chocolate would have been better than nothing, but that was a lesson I had not yet learned. At the time I thought that such a chintzy present would be worse, but I now know that even that would have been at least an indication that I hadn't forgotten.

Anyway, as much as it upset her at the time, she stuck with me for some reason - and I still don't understand why.........

But we are 25 years married now, and she still puts up with me for some reason I don't understand.

1977 Subaru 1600 4x4

When we sold the 2300 we actually traded it on a 1977 Subaru 4x4 wagon.

Ours was orange, but pretty much like this one:

This was just before we got married, so my almost wife and I bought this together - well it was my money, but she came along to help me choose the car.
At least that was the premise - her choice was actually a Toyota Celica of about the same age - which I liked as well - but the lure of 4x4 adventure interested me.

So we bought the Subaru - which she said looked like an orange grasshopper.

But we had so much fun in that car.

We left our wedding reception in it - the guys had covered it in love hearts and teddy bear stickers, shaving cream, and toilet paper, with "Just Married" written across the back.

We drove from the reception to one of the flashest hotels in Perth - drove up to the front door, where we were met by the doormen. I wound down the window and asked where I was supposed to park, and was told that if I would like to get out of the car, they would park it for me! How cool was that!!!!!

And right as we were getting out, a pair of Rolls Royce's with a wedding party pulled up.The guy who got our car must have been seriously disappointed.

It was even funnier when we left the next morning and they had it waiting at the front door, all washed and cleaned and warmed up ready to go, with our bags back in it. That car was an absolute dog when it was cold, and needed to be heavily revved to get it away without stalling. They must have had some good fun getting it out of their private underground car park.....

Then we took it down south of the state for our honeymoon. we stayed in lovely place called "Tinglewood Lodge" for a few days, and then just toured across to Albany, and even slept one night in the back of the Subaru in a carpark by the ocean. In two weeks we went from top luxury to slumming it rough in the car.

But we had a great time.
Nearly got stuck twice on that one trip - once in the Valley of the Giants, we went exploring the tracks - got in OK but when we went to retrace our tracks back out we found that the little car did not ahve the grip to climb one of the hills we came down. No low range, and with just plain road tyres, not enough grip. We had to go another way, but with no maps and no such thing as GPS then, it was guess work. We did guess right though.
The other time was driving onto some cliffs at the ocean. We got onto this ledge - it all looked very simple and safe. We got out to the ledge OK and there was plenty of room and it was all solid. The view was beautiful. When we decided it was time to move on I turned around and then tried to drive back out - but the angles were such that we lifted opposite front and rear tyres, and when you do that in an unlocked 4x4 the lifted wheels just spin in the air. And there wasn't enough room to reverse and get a run up. I sort of rocked it back and forth as much as I dared and just - only just - managed to get it to rock far enough on one forward rock to get the lifted wheels to scrabble a bit of grip.
We made it, but I was not sure we were going to.

We went places and did things with and in that little 4x4 that ignited a fire fro the off-road that has never left.

I am not a full on 4x4 freak, but we always hanker for the dirt roads and the out of the way places.

Mind you the Subaru with it's little wheels, low ground clearance, and no low range taught terrible technique - if something looked sticky, you just gunned it and hoped you could bounce over the top of it - and normally we did.

So many things come to mind with this car, so many memories. This was really "our first car" together, and as such so much of our early married life happened with this car in the background.

1968 FIAT 2300

The third and last true FIAT (so far) in my list.

This is the first car that I ever bought.
After the little black FIAT was unceremoniously denied access to public roads, it was necessary to replace it.
I wanted something a bit unusual, and came across this FIAT - which to be perfectly honest, I knew nothing about. But when I asked my Dad about it, the vehicle he described was definitely interesting to me.

It was a 1968 FIAT 2300 Saloon - something like this:

Ours was very much like this one - same colour, same wheels.... I think it was exactly this model in fact.

It was sitting in some guy's garage, where it had stopped and wouldn't start again.
It turns out that this guy knew nothing about cars, and when the oil pressure light came on he figured it was low on oil and put more in - and did that a few times, until it just stopped running.

What he didn't know was that it had developed a head gasket leak and the oil pressure light was coming on not because it was low on oil, but because the oil was contaminated with water.

My dad had a good look around the thing and decided that we could fix it up with a bit of work, but not much real trouble.

I think the guy wanted $500 for it, and we might have offered him $400 - which he accepted.
But because it was a non-runner, we had to go and get a trailer. When we came back with it the guy wouldn't take more than $200.

Anyway, back at home my dad got to work getting it up and running - I think we got about 8ltrs of grey sludgy goop out of the motor,but the rings were totally shot.
We could get it to fire if we put some oil into each cylinder and then put the plugs in. It was enough to tell us that the motor was basically a goer, if we could fix the gasket leak and put in some new rings.

I should probably say at this stage that when I say "we" what I actually mean is my dad - I would stand around and try to look useful, but the reality is that my dad is a talented farm mechanic, and I can follow basic fix it book instructions.........

The long and short of it is that he got it running with the help of some Citroen rings which were a perfect fit and more easily available than the FIAT ones.

I can tell you right now that that vehicle was a beautiful way to travel.
Big, wide, comfy leather lounge type seats - or maybe they were really good mock leather - I am not sure.
An auto box that was so smooth you could barely feel the changes.
A 2.3 ltr straight six engine that was lovely and silky, and had a nice growl to it when you put the boot in.

It was a medium sized four door saloon car that was used as a limousine in Italy, or so I am led to believe.

In any case, it felt luxury, from the smooth way of travelling, to the interior appointments.

I loved it - it just made you want to relax and enjoy the trip.

Unfortunately, due the age and lack of care before we got it, and probably the amount of time that it sat with that goop inside it, it was never really reliable.

What it needed was a full restoration, but I was a young guy with other things on my mind, and didn't have the time or money for such a task.

But this car took myself and my girlfriend (now wife) on many long drives.
Probably the most memorable was a trip from Perth to Augusta and back one day - about 400km each way.

We hit a bird - didn't do any damage.
Shredded a tyre - the tread just peeled off of it. It was funny because we had this tapping noise that got slowly louder. When I stopped on the side of the road to check it, I rubbed my hand around the tyre that I thought the noise was coming from, and couldn't feel anything. Got back in and drove a bit more, and the tapping turned into banging and then stopped, but a vibration from that corner got really bad.
Fearing something had gone seriously wrong, we stopped for another look and found the tread missing a great section. when I stopped the first time, that part must have been right on the bottom...
Changed the tyre, and continued on our way. Had a nice lunch in Augusta, and then turned for home in the middle of the afternoon.
About 100 km into the return trip the car started blowing smoke - just a small amount at first, but it quickly grew to be a smokescreen of James Bond proportions.
Of course I stopped as soon as it started, and initially couldn't see anything.
As we approached Busselton, we passed a police car going in the other direction - they both craned their necks around as we passed each other, and although I couldn't see what they were doing, I just pulled straight over to the side of the road and waited. 2 or 3 mins later the police car pulled up behind us.
They asked us about it, I explained what had happened and that we were trying to get to Busselton to get it looked at. They very kindly told me to drive carefully to Busselton and then stop there until it was fixed.

I didn't tell them, but that was just not possible - we were not married, and as Christians it was just not going to happen that we would stay somewhere alone together overnight.

The mechanic who had a quick look said we had blown a plug to an oil channel in the back of the motor, and it was spraying oil onto the exhaust. He couldn't fix it, but he sold us some oil and said drive slowly and you might be OK.
So we drove from Busselton back home - about 300 km at about 45 mph (70kph). A long trip to be sure, but if we kept it below 50mph (the speedo was in mph) then it didn't blow much smoke - you could see it, but it was a shadow.
Over 50mph and I could see nothing but grey in the mirror.

I truly loved that car, and if we could have made it reliable I would never have sold it - and now of course I wish I hadn't sold it.

But it was no use to a young, soon to be married guy to have a car that couldn't be trusted.

But I still miss it.
So nice, so smooth, so comfy.... and that motor had a sound and an urge to it that was just magical.