The Adventures of a BioCruiser

[proud patriot]

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(snip)
I’d been looking for a car for ages but hadn’t found myself willing to throw what I had toward anything I really wanted. I almost bought a Subaru Outback XT. It’s an awd wagon with a tuned-down version of the near rally spec STI engine so it’s all race car cool and quiet and smooth and well, somehow not quite right. I stared at its projector beam headlights and thought, “I wouldn’t want to have to replace one of those.” It got about 19mpg in town which seemed abominable given how small it was. I also feared the inevitable temptation to put its turbo and its 260ish hp to work one too many times and finding myself dealing with the red lights behind and the quick boost to my insurance premiums. The third generation Toyota 4runner was another candidate but its low mpg ratings and inevitable high mileage/price combinations weren’t that inspiring either. With budget I had, my choices weren’t vast but the purely practical/rational mind (if there were such a thing) probably would have put me in some kind of late model Toyota or Honda, say a nice little Civic or Corolla with low miles and a benign original owner.

But there was a piece of me that didn’t want any of those things or even newer, shinier things well above my budget. And that’s the piece of me that wanted what I couldn’t yet imagine. And this is where it all became personal, emotional. I had some deeper needs beyond resolving my desire to get myself and some of my stuff from A to B. I wanted a different kind of relationship. I wanted a conscious relationship with a vehicle that affirmed my positive views of technology and reduced the aspects I didn’t like. I wanted something that honored my interests in self-sufficiency, repairability, durability, fuel efficiency, practicality, all-terrain capability and preferably a vehicle that offered some aesthetic charm. I also really wanted to have a vehicle that could run on non-petroleum based fuels. I wanted something, I suppose, different.

Enter 1985 FJ60 diesel Landcruiser.

(snip)

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