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1975 FJ40 — We attend a family camp in Colorado every year the first weekend of June. I first spotted this FJ 40 in the backyard of a run down house in Westcliffe, Colorado during the summer of 1999. I tried in vain to contact the owner. During the summer of 2000 I noticed it was still in the same location and through extensive investigative work found the owner who happened to be the town doctor, Dr. Bliss.
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 I went to the clinic and asked him if he would be interested in
selling what he termed the "Beast". He said that he had just let the insurance expire and would
be willing to sell. We called Classic Cruisers in Salida, Colorado to determine a fair price
and the next thing we knew we were pulling our FJ 40 back to Tulsa.
I bought this as a project car for my oldest son Christopher and myself to fix up together as he was 13 at the time. After taking pieces of it apart, I decided that we could not live with the mess for 2+ years and we proceeded at warp speed to fix her up! I understand this is one of a few soft tops exported to the states. The hard top came from an early 70's FJ 40; therefore, it appears like an older model. |
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Before
After
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Starting in August of 2000, we completely disassembled the cruiser down to the
tub over one weekend. Then we rented a trailer and hauled it to Coweta for a sandblasting and
the same day we took it to Muskogee for a quick coat of primer. Over the next few weekends we
traveled to Muskogee to work on the truck with the guys who were doing some light body work and
painting it. We had ~75 bags of bolts and more pieces than I wanted to count. Fortunately the
owner of the body shop saw we were in trouble and delicately mentioned that one of his guy could
use some overtime and help us put it back together. |