Hello and Welcome! Please browse our site and enjoy. We’re happy to share our restoration ideas, notes, equipment details, expedition plans and travel blogs with you.
Our “Troopy” is a 1984 Toyota Land Cruiser diesel Model HJ47 “Troop Carrier,” thus the name. He’s direct from South Australia, where his family lived in the Barossa Valley, which is well known around the world for it's excellent wines. Whether Troopy carried wine instead of Troops I don’t know, but I’d like to think so! He was obviously well loved (and well driven - see resto notes) and was in pretty much a bone stock condition when purchased.
Who are we? We’re Jeff, Shawna, our son Matt and family dog “Duke” - a normal American family (whatever that is...) that loves the outdoors and travel. Our careers have allowed us to live all over the world, from North America, Hawaii, Europe (Matt was born in Italy - where we live now) and Asia (we moved to Alaska from Singapore). We caught the travel bug early on and it has really never subsided. Jeff has a real passion for old ‘Cruisers (and new ones too - he owns a 2008 FJ Cruiser) and finally found his dream vehicle in the Troopy. We thought it would be a great idea to combine our two interests - travel and bumming around in old Land Cruisers, into a life’s hobby. Early on we decided that it would be fun to share our experiences with everyone on the web - and you’re reading the result! This website is dedicated to "overlanders" everywhere. Cheers!
We envisioned a website that details a restoration process undertaken by regular folks, not mechanics, professional restorers, industry insiders or total “gear heads.” Not that we’ve got anything against these guys or gals (and they’re a great source of info on the ‘boards) but there’s a lot of regular people out there who aren’t any of the above, don’t have superior mechanical skills or unlimited budgets, but still want to restore an old Land Cruiser, Land Rover or Jeep; outfit it for long distance overland travel, then proceed on the trip, hopefully for a long period of time. This sounds a little crazy, I know. But with some perseverance, a lot of elbow grease, a little luck and some help I think anyone can do this. We’re putting our money and time where our mouth is - we’re taking a vintage stock Land Cruiser, completing a practical restoration, outfitting it for overlanding, planning the trip, and actually going on it - then reporting from the road. So boys and girls... Strap in and hang on - its going to be a long, bumpy and fun ride!
