Slightly Modified Landcruiser
Discussion
I've never done one of these before so hope this is of interest to people
This is the story of my slightly modified 1996 Toyota Landcruiser 4.2 Turbo Diesel Manual.
The year was 2007. I was avoiding some piece of work or another procrastinating on good old PistonHeads when I came across this article. In short it was talking about the Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia 2007 - a specialist model for a rally raid event from Moscow, Russia to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
My father had recently found himself with a lot of time on his hands and my schedule could be free’d up as necessary. I fired the link over to the old man with one line - let’s try to buy one and race it! He has a collection of Porsches and was (and is!) well known to Porsche GB so tried his contacts to arrange it so we could buy a drive in one of the factory teams.
They said no.
So, once we had the idea, we developed it further and investigated many options from Hummers to Mercedes G-wagons and of course to the Land Cruiser - the one this thread is about!
The race started in August and it was May at this point. Just a little bit of work required…considering that on the 31st May we didn’t even have a car purchased!
We found a suitable 80 series Land Cruiser that we tried to buy however the seller wasn’t making life easy so in the interest of cracking on, we pulled out of the sale as we couldn’t wait around any longer. Shortly after we found another 80 series that was in better condition, lower mileage and cheaper so in one way good, however it put our schedule even further behind!
We found a shop to work with and this was the initial specification that we built it to the following spec:
- Strip and overhaul existing differentials and if not fully function replace with ARB items
- Intercooler / Charge cooler kit
- Replace all original seats and carpets, coat the entire floor with ‘Protectacote’ textured, non slip coating. Remove unnecessary trim
- Fit a pair of competition seats plus four point race harnesses
- Supply 8 x 16” steel modular rims fitted with 265x75x16 Cooper STT tyres
- Fabricate sub-frame to secure 4 spare wheels and tyres, the Hilift jack, spade and sand mats
- Sand mats
- Hi lift jack
- Jack adaptor
- Spade
- Old Man Emu LTR (as close to original spec as possible) shocks to be fitted to replace OEM items to ensure shocks will last for the duration of the event. Steering damper and caster correction bushes will also be fitted
- Replace existing mud flaps and fit neoprene larger more stone resistant mud flaps (less likely to fall off!)
- Safari raised air intake
- Raised transmission breather kit
- Safety Devices full internal 8 point roll cage
- Reinforced engine sump
- Alloy steering and front axle guard custom made (will also support winch fairlead and Safejack jack adaptors)
- Alloy transmission guard
- Steel rock slider sill protection
- Warn XDC compact 9500lb winch
- Custom discrete winch mount behind original front bumper
- Synthetic winch rope
- Floor mounting kit
- ‘Safejack’ jack adaptors front and
- 2x Zarges alloy storage boxes and 40 l water tank fitted in place of rear seats
- 60 litre additional fuel tank (located in place of original spare wheel)
- 1 x 1kg & 1 x 2kg Fire extinguishers
- Terratrip 303 rally computer
- Garmin 276C GPS system
- Universal tool kit with a few extra specialist tools
- Tyre inflation compressor kit
- Hazard warning triangle
- Air bag jack
- Graphics inc. driver and co driver names
- First aid kit
- Hella map lights
- IPF HID spot lights
- HID H4 Headlight dip and main beam upgrade kit
- HID H1 Headlight main beam upgrade
- Recovery and winch kit
The plan was to race the Transsyberia and then do further similar events - the one main target we were aiming for was that everything was to be stored within the vehicle with as little as possible on the outside to steal/damage in the event of a roll over (this never happened…thank goodness…touch wood)!
Over the years (and indeed the original build) the spec has evolved somewhat - I’ll come back to this later.
I’ve erased the memory of the original bill for the build from my mind and I never wish to see that piece of paper again
Back to 2007.
Neither of us had ever done this before and before we knew it, the car was built, training exercises had been carried out and the three of us (dad, me and the car) were on a container ship bound for St Petersburg, Russia with lots of Porsches and other vehicles!
In total, there were 34 teams that entered. 25 were Cayenne S Transsyberias. They weren’t the only Porsches entered - another couple of chaps were in a 911 rally car!
When we landed we were stuck in the customs holding pen for the thick end of a day until the Russian authorities decided we as a group would be allow to bribe our way out of the pen! A few moments later we were bound for Moscow. By the time we were released it was very late in the day so we found a secure compound at a petrol station near St Petersburg for us all to sleep in our vehicles over night. I thought it was bad in the completely unadjustable Recaro SPG XL seats that we had however I really felt for the boys in the 911!
The following morning when we got on the road again (I’d say when we woke up…but that implied we slept!) I took the wheel for the journey to Moscow to find the group hotel. Within half an hour, I found myself in the passenger seat of a Russian Police car being asked for a bribe. In Roubles. In Russian. In the interests of completeness, I don’t speak Russian!
Anyway, palm greased (and no, it did’t involve any sexual favours) we wound up in Moscow ready to start the rally.
On the night before the rally began Louis Vuitton on Red Square hosted dinner for all the participants which was really rather pleasant.
The following morning we found ourselves driving into Red Square outside the Basilica for the start of the rally which was to be a police-escort led first stage out of Moscow (thank goodness - the traffic was terrible!).
What followed was an adventure with lots of ups and downs and for a while we were leading the whole race for a few days by a good period of time - the Porsche execs were looking worried. I understand that they had an 8 figure budget to enter their 25 vehicles
On one of the final stages, we made a small error that cost us a short while and finally the race I’m afraid to say. From memory, we placed 6th overall and won our class. The annoying this was that we lost the race, they didn't win it. Hey ho. Not bitter or anything. No. 9 years later
.After that, we have taken the car to many places including to the heart of Libya (more police escort fun - I had a police escort of 4 cars and 6 bikes on blues & twos just for little old me which was a bit of an experience), races in Europe and beyond as well as being the tool to make some good friends!
As I said earlier, the specification of the car has evolved slowly over time, however the main upgrade/change has been that all the glass has been removed and replaced with either metal panels or plexiglass (other than the windscreen).
As you can see, she is not a garage queen and carries the odd battle scar:
And as it looks today:
A short video someone kindly took of one of the special stages in Russia if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BILr-d6DnYE
Edited by The Moose on Friday 22 April 19:33
![](http://thumbsnap.com/sc/t4kK097a.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="http://thumbsnap.com/jUL1c3W7" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]http://thumbsnap.com/sc/jUL1c3W7.jpg)
SlimJim16v said:
Nice write up, thanks. Shame you lost out 9 years ago, would've been nice to stick it to Porsche.
9 years ago. Wow. I can still remember that first event like it was yesterday. Almost every detail. Every bribe, every hotel and camp site etc. I even sold sand to an Arab on that event!My favourite memory I think was when our Spanish friends in a G-Wagon who, when we were sitting around one night under the Mongolian sky whilst drinking warm larger and coke that was laid on by the organisers asked us if we wanted a proper drink. A bit confused as this larger and come was what we had for most of the trip tentatively agreed - thinking that if it wasn't to our liking, we could feign some foreign language barrier. They proceeded to produce some perfectly chilled stunning white Spanishian wine. I turns out for their Mercedes-G they'd fitted a chiller and brought wine from a vineyard local to them. Another father and son team who tried to buy a Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia and ended up as a privateer.
The really funny bit was when they asked us if we wanted 'jam' with our wine. Rather baffling and confusing for us although we did wonder if it was a local Spanish tradition, or one from their village. They then produced some fantastic gorgeous prosciutto they picked up on their way to Moscow at the beginning and shared it with us. Of course they meant ham not jam! The memory of 2 fathers and 2 sons sitting under the most fantastic Mongolian sky with a starry blanket overhead eating prosciutto and drinking chilled Spanish white wine is a memory I'll take to my dying day.
We still beat over 20 Porsche factory teams on that event. Not a bad effort overall all things considered.
Oh, and then there was the time in Libya when one of the 'protection crews' (men in the beds of pickups with AK47s) got it a bit wrong coming down a dune into our camp one night, rolled all the way down with bodies flying everywhere. The whole camp went silent, certain in the knowledge that at least one person was definitely dead. We then watched every single one of them get up, chuck everything back into The bed of their pickup and carry on as if nothing had happened.
I have a lot of racing and Motorsport memories that are as vivid as if they happened Yesterday.
I am incredibly lucky that over my relatively short life I've experienced many incredible and frankly unbelievable things.
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