About Prairie State Cruisers

Welcome to Prairie State Cruisers. This site is designed to act as a journal for the restoration of Rick Marshall’s 1970 Toyota FJ40 LandCruiser. There are other LandCruiser enthusiasts in southern Illinois and my plan is also to use this site to help build a community and give us a common place to chat and share pictures and experiences. If you would like to be a member of Prairie State Cruisers and contribute to this blog please send Rick an E-Mail at

Email Rick at prairiestatecruisers@gmail.com

How it started

I started this website today because I wanted to document the restoration of my 1970 Toyota FJ40 LandCruiser. I bought the LandCruiser in the Summer of 2008 and have done very little work on it since. The LandCruiser is in roadworthy shape and I use it a couple of times per week to drive to work. I know the older series LandCruisers have been the greatest off-road vehicle ever made, but I don’t have enough confidence in mine yet to trust it off-road.

Here is what it looked like when I bought it in the summer of 2008:

It had a beige color and a soft top. The thing I liked least about the Cruiser was that the previous owner had put radial road tires on it with the whitewalls facing out. It was ugly, and there was quite a bit of rust, but the engine ran great and overall it was in pretty good shape! The previous owner kept the Cruiser in Onalaska, Wisconsin.