Land Cruiser (60 Series)

From Working Vehicle to Family Wagon The 60 Series arrived in August 1980, replacing the 55 Series with substantially renewed exterior styling and, more significantly, a different brief. Toyota dropped the 55's front bench in favour of separate seats that better supported the driver, reducing capacity from six to five, and made air conditioning, power steering and fabric seating available. In Japan the vehicle remained classified as a commercial vehicle, but the export model was sold as a station wagon and pitched at individual buyers rather than fleets. The contrast with the FJ40 running alongside it was stark: as late as 1979 the 40 was still a back-to-basics machine without air conditioning or power steering. Toyota ended FJ40 sales in the United States during 1983 and stopped building it the following year, leaving the 60 Series as the only Land Cruiser Americans could buy.

Petrol: 2F to 3F-E The FJ60 inherited the 4.2-litre 2F carburetted inline-six from its predecessor, rated at roughly 135 horsepower in US specification - unhurried, long-geared and thirsty, with a 0-60 mph time around 14 seconds and observed economy in the low teens. In November 1984 Toyota introduced the FJ62V with the 3F, a 4.0-litre development of the 2F with a redesigned cylinder head, initially carburetted and sold in limited markets. The change that mattered to American buyers came in August 1988, when the carburettor was replaced by electronic fuel injection to create the 3F-E: approximately 155 horsepower at 4,000 rpm and 220 lb-ft at 3,000 rpm, paired for the first time in the US with the A440F four-speed automatic. Combined with a new dash, upgraded interior, power windows and locks and softer leaf springs, the 1988 FJ62 completed the transition from utility vehicle to upmarket family transport.

The Diesels America Never Got Outside North America the 60 Series was substantially a diesel vehicle. The BJ60 used the four-cylinder B and 3B units, the latter rated at 98 PS and dropped in August 1986. The HJ60V, with the 3,980 cc 2H naturally aspirated six, followed in November 1982, and in October 1985 the HJ61V arrived with the 12H-T, a turbocharged direct-injection version of the same six producing roughly 134 horsepower and 232 lb-ft. None of these were sold in the United States, where every Land Cruiser from the 60 Series onward was petrol-only. Because the series ended in 1990, the entire diesel range now falls outside the 25-year federal import threshold, and JDM, Australian and Middle Eastern HJ60 and HJ61 wagons are legally importable - the principal reason a right-hand-drive diesel 60 Series turns up in American classifieds at all.

Round Lights, Square Lights The distinction buyers search on is headlights. Cars built to August 1987 wear two round sealed-beam units; the facelift of that month moved the whole range to four square lamps, along with higher bumpers and a rounder dashboard. In the United States the split maps cleanly onto model designation, since every FJ60 sold there is a round-light truck and every FJ62 is a square-light one. Elsewhere it does not: FJ62s built between November 1984 and the 1987 facelift carry round headlights and carburettors, so model code alone is an unreliable guide to what a non-US car actually is.

The End of the Run Japanese production of the 60 Series ran to January 1990, by which time the 80 Series was ready to take over; classic.com records series output continuing to 1992 for the Venezuelan market. American sales, on figures supplied by Toyota Motor Sales USA, peaked in the final year at 6,128 units. Total US volume across the whole 1981-1990 window was around 45,000 vehicles, a small number that goes some way to explaining why clean examples are now hard to find.

Rust dominates: rear quarters and wheel wells, tailgate, sills, cargo-area floor, and frame rails and rear crossmember. Fuel lines and electrical looms suffer on trucks from humid or salted regions. Mechanically the 2F and 3F sixes are durable but low on output and heavy on fuel; carburettor and emissions plumbing on later FJ60s is complex and frequently found tampered with or bypassed. The A440F automatic in FJ62s is generally robust but many surviving trucks have high mileage and deferred service. Because engine swaps - small-block V8s in particular - have long been common across the Land Cruiser range, expect to find non-original drivetrains and to have to assess the quality of the work. Parts supply is good for mechanical items and body panels but weaker for trim and interior pieces.

Corrosion decides the purchase. Check the rear quarter panels and inner wheel arches, the tailgate, the door sills, the cargo floor beneath the carpet, the rain gutters and window frames, and - decisively - the frame, particularly the rear crossmember where the shocks mount and the rear frame rails. Forum consensus is blunt: body rust is repairable with patch panels, frame rot is a walk-away fault, and there is almost always more corrosion than is visible, so probe rather than trust a tidy respray. Confirm which car you are actually looking at: US FJ60s are round-light and carburetted, US FJ62s are square-light with 3F-E injection and usually the A440F automatic, and a non-US FJ62 may be neither. Verify that a claimed diesel import has clean import paperwork. Establish whether the truck is stock, since original unmolested examples and heavily built ones trade on different logic, and price accordingly. Expect a carburetted 2F to be slow and thirsty - 14 seconds to 60 mph and 11-12 mpg is normal, not a fault.

As of August 2026, classic.com carried a CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark of $33,207 for the 60 Series as a whole, with recorded sales spanning $2,600 for the worst examples to $119,000 at the top. Split by model, the FJ60 benchmark stood at $32,344 with an average sale of $31,887 and a range of $2,600 to $99,000, and the FJ62 benchmark at $34,233 with an average of $34,638, a low of $3,350 (a 1988 car sold November 2022) and a high of $119,000 (a 1990 car sold August 2026); both were trending upward. HJ60 and HJ61 diesel imports tracked by classic.com sat at a $32,138 benchmark, broadly in line with the petrol cars. Hagerty's FJ60 valuation piece recorded a 1981 FJ60 at $50,000 in #1 condition, $29,800 in #2 and $20,400 in #3, with #2 values up 66 percent over three years and 104 percent over five, and noted that the FJ60 was then the least expensive Land Cruiser in the Hagerty Price Guide by a significant margin - more than $10,000 below FJ40 money in #1 and #2 condition. Millennials and Gen X together accounted for roughly 90 percent of insurance quotes on the model.