An Unsung Hero – Birth of the FJ
To the Rescue with the Japanese Jeep
“The reason our company is here is the Land Cruiser.”
—Toyota Motor Sales President and COO Jim Press
World War II was over. Japan was suffering under a double-edged sword. The country was wracked by inflation and the rationing of available goods and services. What remained of the homeland industrial base struggled to achieve even a tenth of its prewar production levels.
“Starting from Zero”—that’s what Toyota Motor Corporation titles this period in its official corporate history.
From a contemporary perspective, it’s hard to imagine that the now mighty Toyota Motor Corporation had such modest prewar production numbers.
Founded in Japan in 1936 on the dream of creating domestically-designed and engineered passenger cars, Toyota at first had little choice but to focus on buses and trucks, not cars, for moving the nation’s people and their goods. Of the more than 16,000 vehicles the company built in 1943, little more than 200 were passenger cars.
A year later, that number dropped to a few dozen.
Although Japanese automakers were allowed to start building vehicles shortly after World War II ended
in September 1945, they were on their own in finding the needed raw materials. Even then they were restricted to producing trucks for the reconstruction effort. Between 1945 and 1947, Toyota built no cars at all, and it wasn’t until 1953 that the company returned to its meager prewar passenger car production levels.
But things started to change dramatically for Toyota in the summer of 1950, when the Cold War turned hot. The Peoples Republic of (North) Korea—supported by its Communist allies from China and the Soviet Union—invaded the Republic of (South) Korea. The ensuing battle would be supported by the presence of some 400,000 American military personnel.
To move its armed forces around the rugged Korean Peninsula, the U.S. Army needed vehicles. The Willys jeep may have ruled the day through World War II, but the army didn’t think war surplus general purpose vehicles would cut it in this new terrain. Mountains cover more than 70 percent of the Korean peninsula, which has a cold and wet climate.
The army sought updated vehicles, and it wanted them produced as close as possible to the peninsula.
So it went to Toyota with blueprints to the venerable and combat-proven Willys jeep and worked with the Japanese company on changes needed to meet the challenges in Korea. These changes included the need for a slightly longer wheelbase, a slightly more compliant suspension, and a more powerful engine than the four-cylinder motor in the World War II jeep.
The engine chosen was the 85-horsepower Toyota Type-B, an inline, 3.4-liter six-cylinder fed by a single-barrel carburetor. The powerplant pulled from a 15-gallon fuel tank—pulling strongly enough through a low 5.53:1 first gear that the new Toyota didn’t need a low-range transfer case for its four-wheel-drive system. The vehicle’s platform was modified from the one beneath Toyota’s one-ton truck, so its wheelbase was nearly 8 inches longer than the jeep’s.
Officially, the vehicle was designated the Toyota jeep, though it was better known as the “BJ” because it combined the B engine and a jeeplike body and chassis.
At first, the BJ was considered inferior to the “real” jeep, but in July 1951, Toyota test driver Ichiro Taira drove a BJ prototype to the sixth of the 10 hikers’ checkpoints on Japan’s 12,388-foot Mount Fuji. That was higher than anyone thought likely—or even possible—in a four-wheel motor vehicle. Then, inspired by a historic horseback-riding feat accomplished centuries earlier, Taira drove to Okazaki City and up steep temple stairs.
Taira’s drive drew attention to the BJ. The Japan
Self-Defense Forces (the national police whose numbers the Allies had greatly expanded in case the conflict bridged the Straits of Korea) placed a big order, but then backed off on that number. That decision turned into a disguised blessing for Toyota, which could benefit from selling the vehicles overseas. This brought in much needed currency. It also carried the Toyota name to
other countries.
The BJ had been engineered for rugged dependability and a go-anywhere capability, and its longer wheelbase and slightly softer springing enhanced its ride in cities as well. Soon, Japan’s national police agency increased its order. To meet both domestic and overseas demand, Toyota had to keep its production facility in operation 24 hours a day. This boosted both the Toyota company and the overall Japanese economic recovery.
When Willys objected to Toyota using the “Jeep” name outside Japan, Toyota opted for “Land Cruiser”—
a twist on the name of the British-built Land Rover that had become the postwar standard among civilian, if not quite civilized, four-wheel-drive vehicles.
In 1955, the original Land Cruiser, the BJ, was in its final model year and a new version, the FJ, was making
its debut. This new Land Cruiser had a revised body with a face inspired by a traditional Japanese warrior’s mask.
It also had real doors with roll-down windows and even optional air conditioning. It came with a standard canvas top, and later with a hard roof.
The chassis was flexible enough to provide for long- and short-wheelbase varieties, as well as two- and four-door versions, one of which even featured a pickup truck bed. This new Land Cruiser took its new first initial from Toyota’s 105-horsepower, 3.8-liter F-type engine—thus the FJ20 and its various versions (FJ25, FJ28V, etc.) were born.
In 1957, the U.S. military’s procurement office invited several Japanese automakers, including Toyota, to send trucks of various sizes for testing at the Aberdeen proving grounds not far from Washington, D.C. The Toyota trucks were a hit. Since the Land Cruiser already had proven itself to American soldiers, and the procurement office now also liked the company’s trucks, Toyota decided to start selling its vehicles to civilians in the United States.
Toyota officially established its American arm—Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.—on October 31, 1958. A few months earlier, however, the Japanese manufacturer had shipped two Toyota Crown sedans across the Pacific. They were first Japanese cars officially exported to the U.S. mainland.
Despite high hopes, initial sales were modest, to say the least. Toyota’s U.S. arm sold no cars that fall and just one FJ20. The cars were unsuited to American roads and driving styles—so ill-suited, in fact, that by the end of 1960, Toyota stopped shipping cars to the United States. Still, the Japanese manufacturer was determined to succeed in this huge and important market, and instead of simply withdrawing, it regrouped to figure out how to build cars that Americans wanted to drive.
Although it sent no passenger cars to the United States for more than four years, Toyota maintained its beachhead in the American market as the flow of Land Cruisers—several hundred, perhaps even a thousand or more a year—continued through 1959 and 1960 and beyond. Thus, throughout the now long and strong history of Toyota in North America, a history that includes Camry’s multiyear run as the best-selling car in the country, the only nameplate that has been present from the very beginning, the one constant, has been the Land Cruiser.
Veterans at Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. will tell you that the only reason the company even survived in the United States was because of the Land Cruiser. Actually, the only reason Toyota Motor Company of Japan survived may well have been the BJ and FJ Land Cruisers.
“Land Cruiser is the cornerstone of our business,” says Chris Hostetter, vice president for advanced product strategy and product planning for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.
“If you really go back to our roots, if you really look at how we started, it was FJ, it was Toyota truck, and it was four-wheel drive,” adds James Lentz, group vice president and general manager of the Toyota brand in the United States. “We brought cars down the road, but the real soul of the legend of Toyota is FJ.”
“The Land Cruiser was what kept Toyota America going,” former Land Cruiser Engineering Chief Saihei Iritani said when the Land Cruiser celebrated its 50th anniversary. “It is no exaggeration to say that the Land Cruiser was the company’s savior at that time.”
Toyota Motor Sales President and COO Jim Press, who joined Toyota in 1970 and has a firm feel for Toyota history and corporate heritage, underscores the importance of the Land Cruiser, not only in North America, but in Japan and around the world.
“The reason our company is here is the Land Cruiser,” he says.
Toyota may have interrupted its flow of cars to the United States in 1960, but that also was the year it sent over a brand new Land Cruiser, the FJ40.
Though no one may have recognized it at the time, an icon had been created.
The FJ was available with a canvas top or a distinctive hardtop—high, flat, and painted white. Access to the sidesaddle and fold-up rear seats came through a pair of rear doors. To provide rearward visibility for the driver, engineers devised unique rear support pillars that incorporated wraparound windows.
The FJ40 drew its power from a 125-horsepower inline six-cylinder engine, with a four-cylinder diesel available in some versions and markets.
Toyota built only some 1,300 BJs and just slightly more than 13,000 FJ20s, including those exported to South America, the Middle East, Australia, and Malaysia. But over the course of 24 years, Toyota produced more than one million FJ40s—two-doors, four-doors, and those with pickup beds.
Quite literally, these versatile, go-anywhere (and then come back) vehicles would span the globe, reaching both poles and every place in between not under more than a couple feet of water, proving their rugged durability and versatility in deserts, jungles, mountains, and other extreme environments.
Although the FJ40 remained in production until 1984, Toyota began producing larger Land Cruisers as early as 1967, starting with the 55 Series, a model that looks like what we now call a “sport utility vehicle.” These vehicles had an even longer wheelbase (by 16 inches), a wagon-style body with comfortable seating for six, as well as suspension that provided a more comfortable ride.
All this was combined with a more powerful engine that provided the 80-miles-per-hour cruising speeds common on American highways and on roads across the Australian Outback. The 60 Series Land Cruiser arrived in 1980 with an even more powerful engine.
These changes were well received and enhanced the FJ’s reputation for going anywhere a four-wheeled vehicle could reach.
For example, by February 2004, Emil and Liliana Schmid had driven their FJ60 across 339 national borders and into 144 countries, climbed from below sea level on the shores of the Dead Sea to 17,000 feet in the Bolivian Andes, burned through more than 37,000 gallons of fuel, worn out 63 tires, 27 batteries, and spent nearly 20 years establishing a record for the longest continuous journey by car. But they and their Land Cruiser never had to be pushed or towed.
While the Schmids may have taken things to an extreme, United Nations personnel and peacekeepers, miners and missionaries, and explorers and educators could tell similar stories about the durability and capability of their FJs.
By the mid-1980s, the FJ40 had evolved about as far as it was going to go under the current technology. At the same time, the focus in the marketplace was shifting to even larger, more luxurious and comfortable sport utility vehicles.
While some markets saw the 70 Series Land Cruiser launched in 1984 or the Prado version that followed 12 years later, the United States received only the new larger and more luxurious 80 Series Land Cruiser that replaced the 60 Series in 1990. Subsequent Land Cruisers were
even larger, heavier, and powered by thirsty V-8 engines. They also were even more lavish—and more expensive.
The new models fit well into American motorists’ growing desires for grandiose sport utility vehicles. But without something like the Prado, Toyota’s American sales arm no longer offered a relatively inexpensive rugged
off-road vehicle to the loyal core of FJ buyers.
That core included a lot of young men who liked outdoor adventures. As these owners got older, they either had to scrounge for parts to maintain their aging FJs or had no choice but to shop other brands for off-pavement activity vehicles, even if they stayed loyal to Toyota for their daily drivers.
Toyota lost at least an entire generation of potential FJ buyers and future Toyota customers—precisely the
young male demographic so sought after by modern American businesses.Obviously, there was a void in the Toyota lineup.
From Larry Edsall’s book Toyota FJ Cruiser
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Used with permission Copyright Motorbooks 2006