It’s crazy to think that the Toyota FJ Cruiser is old enough to be worked on by a classic 4×4 restoration shop. But, yeah, 2008 was a long time ago now! This one was just another mildly rusty New England rig that the owner wanted to bring back to life, but they must have had a big budget because it snowballed into one of the most spectacular “modern car” restorations I’ve ever heard of.
The truck “came into our shop as a small project and turned into a much larger project, as all these vehicles do,” says Greg Ward of Greg’s Restorations in a YouTube video documenting the project. This is the same outfit that found the Dante’s Peak Suburban, which we heard about over the summer. The shop mainly specializes in old-school Toyotas like FJ40s and slightly later Land Cruisers. Old trucks like that are, in many ways, a lot easier to work on and rebuild than something post-2000. Newer vehicles have so much more plastic, so many more layers and components to dismantle to access anything. Not to mention miles of wiring. Once they’ve been on the road in the Northeast for a few years, they’re plenty rusty, too.
“When I started this trade, I never thought we’d be restoring ’90s or 2000s vehicles,” Ward mentioned. I bet he gets more calls for similar projects after people see how nice this thing came out. I screenshotted some of his time-lapse shots to show just how deep the restoration crew went on this thing—I mean, they basically rebuilt the whole car. Here, swipe through:
The FJ Cruiser, of course, has a lot of styling nods to the FJ40s of the ’60s. But today it has a very Y2K-era vibe to it. It’s a specific kind of retro that was really popular in the first decade of the millennium (see also: Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, PT Cruiser, Chevy HHR, SSR …).
Believe it or not, the FJ Cruiser was still sold new in the UAE until just a few years ago. And 2023-model rigs look almost the same as they did when the truck was launched 18 years ago.
But this particular 2008 example must have meant something to the owner, who apparently bought it new, used it, and then stashed it for a bit. Unfortunately, that entropy left it exposed to two of any old car’s worst enemies: moisture and mice.
In the video, Ward goes over the main components of the project as pulling the frame and sandblasting the underside, replacing the whole rear axle, getting a brand-new OEM exhaust all the way from the manifold to the tip, and spending countless hours cleaning things up, even going to the level of replacing undercarriage plastics.
The cost of the work isn’t disclosed, but Ward mentions “about 1,000 hours” invested over the course of a year. Surely it would have cost less to just buy another FJ Cruiser, but hey, sometimes a car is just too special to give up on and this khaki-colored early FJC is awesome. I can totally understand wanting to bring it back to as-new perfection if one could afford it.
Got a tip? Drop us a line at tips@thedrive.com.
Automotive journalist since 2013, Andrew primarily coordinates features, sponsored content, and multi-departmental initiatives at The Drive.
