Looks of Toyota Land Cruiser FJ45LV

You've probably seen lots of short-body FJ40s. But have you ever seen the long-body wagon? From the front, the Toyota Land Cruiser FJ45LV looks just like the FJ40, but with four doors and a rear gate that opens down/closes up, the FJ45LV is really the forerunner of today's Land Cruiser wagons. Car history tells that the FJ45LV was produced from the early 1960s until around the end of 1969, the year before the FJ55 debuted. My FJ45LV is the late model shown in the picture below. The orignal turn signals broke and were replaced with BJ lights.

Many Toyota Landcruiser FJ40s were built by Arakawa Bankin Kogyo, now ARACO Co., Ltd., but my FJ45V (LV) wagon was built by Gifu Body Co., Ltd.

In 1954, Gifu Body was established as a partner entity for Toyota Motor Sales Co., Ltd., but in December 1960, the company devoted itself to the production of truck bodies, primarily for Toyota. The manufacture of FJ45Vs for the domestic market began around this time.

Recognizing the development and production skills of Gifu Body, Toyota accorded production of left hand-drive FJ45Vs, otherwise known as FJ45LVs, to the company in July 1963. Exports to North America apparently commenced thereafter.

However, in August 1967, Toyota decided to consolidate production of Landcruisers at ARACO. It seems that the development of the FJ55V, up until that time, had been executed by Gifu Body, but production was carried out by ARACO. The FJ45 pickup model was always manufactured by ARACO. Today, Gifu Body turns out bodies for specialty vehicles, such as the Toyota MegaCruiser and emergency vehicles for firefighting.

The steel plate used in the FL40 body was 1mm (0.394in) thick. The body panels of today's cars are all fabricated by presses, but I hear that this was not the case with the FJ40s. Only the large pieces were put into a machine. The smaller plates were worked by hand. It is for this reason, apparently, that the steel plate was 1mm thick -- for strength and to facilitate the manual production processes. And just FYI, the steel plate used in the Mercedes of the same time was 1.4mm, or so I'm told.

Production Notes

The Land Cruiser FJ wagon series went through several model changes. The series included the FJ28VA, FJ35V, FJ43V and JF45V, for domestic use, and the FJ28LVA, FJ35LV, FJ43LV and FJ45LV, for export. The "L" in "LV" refers to models with the steering wheel on the left side. FJs were initially exported to Central and South America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia.

The FJ45V (LV) was produced from December 1960 to January 1967, and about 1,500 of the LV models made it to the North American market between March 1963 and December 1966. The FJ28LVA, FJ35LV and the FJ43LV were never exported to North America.

Production data are presented in the chart below.

Model	FJ45V(LV)	FJ35V(LV)	FJ43V(LV)	FJ28VA(LVA)
Produced from/to	1960 (Dec) - 1967 (Jan)	1960 (Sept) - 1960 (Nov)	1960 (Dec) - 1967 (Dec)	1956 (Dec) - 1961 (Jan)
Wheelbase(mm)	2,650	2,650	2,430	2,430
Length(mm)	4,660	4,615	4,195	4,195
Front Tread(mm)	1,404	1,390	1,404	1,390
Total built	5,080	60	200	1,250