If you are in the market for a Restored Toyota Land Cruiser (buying one, not building one), it’s getting very difficult to navigate all of the options. With inventory being spread out across the country, it’s not usually practical to go see every Land Cruiser you’re interested in. Additionally, there are several different ways to buy from several different kinds of sellers.
At least every week, I try to help somebody navigate the wide selection of Land Cruisers that are for sale on the internet, and over the years I’ve noticed some patterns. I think recognizing these patterns can help people recognize the right places, avoid the wrong places, and critically analyze the places in the middle.
This article is more about learning to size up the different types of Land Cruiser marketplaces rather than how to individually recognize what a good Cruiser is. I’ve talked about that before and I am preparing a more extensive look into that in the future.
Some of these marketplaces are much better than others, but the old question still applies:
Can I trust this seller?
Just for fun, in this article I am going to rate each marketplace with a score of 1–10 on the trustworthy scale in two areas:
- “Do these people know what they are talking about?”
- “Are they telling me the truth?”
Please keep in mind that these ratings are 100% for fun and are broad generalizations without scientific merit. My opinion of all of these marketplaces is not based on personal experience with every single one, obviously. Rather, it comes from talking to hundreds of people over the years who have had experiences with them. Because of the volume of people we deal with, I’m pretty comfortable making the following generalizations.
Enjoy.
1. Buying a Restored Toyota Land Cruiser From a Private Seller
Anytime I am looking for a Land Cruiser for sale, I immediately start looking locally. I realize you’re going to have to get lucky to find something close enough where you can go look at it, but every Land Cruiser that’s for sale is local to somebody, so it’s definitely worth a look.
I’m talking about places like Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, KSL, and even old school want ads if you still have them.
If you find what you’re looking for, one benefit is that you can go look at it. There’s also the possibility that the person selling it doesn’t study the market and isn’t looking to retire off the sale.
Also in the for-sale-by-owner category, there are the larger more automotive-specific marketplaces like Hemmings. These are marketplaces similar to Craigslist but with a broader national reach. Hemmings specifically focuses on classic cars, but with the same approach — the individual seller offers the vehicle with their own description and pictures.
Personally, I’ve never had much luck finding vehicles for sale in these places, but that’s just because they’re not as flashy as other online car sellers and likely more difficult to navigate.
Still, I prefer to look at vehicles that are for sale by the owner, not by a traditional car dealer.
For sale by owner score — “Do these people know what they’re talking about?”
My score is 5. Some of the people are going to know exactly what they are talking about, and some are not going to know at all, so it’s really a crap shoot. Generally speaking though, I think it’s easier to size these people up and determine for yourself.
For sale by owner score — “Are these people telling me the truth?”
My score here is also 5 because of the 50/50 mix you might encounter when dealing with people.
2. Specialized Classic Car Dealers and Resellers
When you search “Toyota Land Cruiser for sale,” these are the flashy operations that tend to pop up.
These are the places you find online with names like “Legacy Classic Cars” or “Premium Exotic Motorcars” (by the way, I made both of those up just now — if there is a real business named one of those things, it’s purely coincidental).
These classic car-specific used car dealers operate either by consigning other people’s vehicles or by purchasing vehicles and then reselling them. They will always have a fancy showroom, and behind the pictures of the Land Cruiser you’re looking at, you’re going to see other exotic cars to build credibility — Porsches, Ferraris, etc.
Now please forgive me this quick story.
When I was a kid, I drove into a used car dealership (in my mom’s Oldsmobile) in the town where I grew up. Before I even had a chance to park, slick-looking car salesmen in cheap suits started coming out from between parked cars like the zombies in Shaun of the Dead. They were literally almost trampling over each other to get to what they obviously considered “fresh meat.”
I was 16 years old, terrified, locked my door, and sped out of the parking lot as one of the salesmen actually tried to open the passenger door of my car.
This is the story I think of anytime I look at these classic car reseller websites. I can almost smell the slime through my screen.
Classic car reseller score — Do these people know what they’re talking about?
My score is 1. Although the salesman at this kind of dealership is a self-professed “car guy,” they generally don’t know anything about quality or the mechanics of their inventory.
Classic car reseller score — Are they going to tell me the truth?
I will also give them a 1. It’s unthinkable for them to tell you the truth if it might cost them the sale.
Now, it is important for me to say this: just because these places are unscrupulous does not mean that good Toyota Land Cruisers don’t pass through their dealerships. I have seen plenty of nice vehicles in the inventory of places like this. You just have to be very educated going into that environment.
3. Dedicated Classic Toyota Land Cruiser Dealerships and Specialist Shops
These are shops like ours, or small dealerships that are exclusive to one brand — possibly even one model.
We only became a dealership three years ago, and that was basically to legitimize the number of cars we were helping to rehome. It’s not a large part of our business, and we only help sell about 20 Land Cruisers annually.
There are a handful of other Land Cruiser-specific dealerships just like ours that I am familiar with. Most of them are pretty good.
Score — Do these people know what they are talking about?
9. I would expect that most of the people you encounter in these marketplaces know their product.
Score — Are they going to tell you the truth?
7.5. I came up with that because of the handful of shops I can think of doing this, about 25% of them aren’t very truthful in my experience.
4. Live Land Cruiser Auctions
You are probably all familiar with the live auctions that I’m talking about. They occur semi-annually and some of them are even televised.
I’ve never bought or sold a Land Cruiser at live auction, but I have plenty of colleagues and friends who have. Some of them are even addicted to the live auction experience and spend their year building vehicles just to sell in these venues.
One of the things about these auctions is that the vehicles for sale are concentrated in one place and available for inspection before you start bidding. You can inspect them, but you still have to go see them in person to really know what they’re like — and that means you have to be educated on what to look for.
Then there is the whole “auction fever” thing where sometimes people get carried away and wind up bidding much higher than a vehicle is obviously worth. This is countered by the fact that sometimes vehicles slip through the cracks and sell for less.
I can’t even score this marketplace with my “Do they know what they’re talking about?” and “Are they telling the truth?” scale because I don’t even know who “the people” are. In lots of cases, the sellers aren’t available on site and you wouldn’t be able to talk to them anyway.
If you can find the seller, then like the private seller category, you’ll have to decide for yourself.
Here’s something I can say that might be helpful about buying a Restored Land Cruiser from a live auction like this. Most of the Land Cruisers that I see roll across the auction block were built to be sold. There is an important distinction here. In my experience, vehicles that are built just to be sold are prone to having more shortcuts taken during the build process than ones that were built for an individual. In the Restored Land Cruiser space, this is especially true for imports, and I do see live auctions as a common point of entry for imported Land Cruisers into the US market.
5. Online Restored Toyota Land Cruiser Auctions
This is the biggest category.
Honestly, I’m baffled at the sheer volume of Toyota Land Cruisers that pass through the largest one of these venues. It seems like there is a constant stream of almost every model available. It’s almost overwhelming.
The good thing about these venues is that most of the time there are enough pictures available that an educated buyer could pour through them to determine the actual condition of the vehicle.
The other good (and bad) thing about these venues is that they allow comments from almost anyone to be made about the vehicle for sale. This is good because some flaws do get flushed out throughout the course of each auction. This is also bad because the same two questions apply to every comment:
Do they know what they’re talking about?
Are they telling the truth?
My recent experience reading comments from “the peanut gallery” shows that the value of most of the comments is worth just that — peanuts.
Reading through the comments of many auctions, I’m often skeptical of overly positive comments that seem to be trying to hype up the vehicle. One that cracked me up recently was something like “This FJ40 is a tasty burger!” whatever that means.
So my scores for the big online auctions are:
For “Do they know what they’re talking about?” and “Are they telling you the truth?”
First I need to define who I mean by “they.” By “they,” I mean the people actually writing the listing — the person behind the keyboard who interacted with the vehicle’s selling owner (or dealer) and is working on the auction behind the scenes.
Their score? 1… for both.
To be fair, I give them this low score not knowing what their actual qualifications might be.
You will never see the person writing the listing’s personal opinion about anything they are putting on these sites. You’re going to see phrases like, “An 80 MPH speedometer is framed by a three-spoke steering wheel,” and other general phrases that describe the model — not the individual vehicle being sold.
Sometimes they note specific flaws or modifications that the seller mentioned. But if the seller didn’t mention them, the lister won’t write them.
This leaves these vehicles subject to a great deal of interpretation and scrutiny. And you’re probably not going to get experts willing to comment much in the peanut gallery to clear things up.
Despite being invited by these auction sites several times personally to comment, normally I refrain. I learned my lesson early on when I pointed out a serious structural problem with a vehicle being sold and was promptly accosted by the seller who found out who I was and called me, angry that I was lowering the value of his vehicle.
In that case, it didn’t bother me much because the seller was clearly trying to misrepresent a real safety hazard. But the nature of this whole thing usually influences me to keep my mouth shut — at least on the auctions themselves.
What I can do to help… Before You Buy
Now, what can be done to help a prospective buyer navigate all of this?
Two things come to mind.
First: If you’re considering buying a Toyota Land Cruiser — or really any vehicle that I am familiar with — run it by me.
This is the easy button.
I’m happy to look at pictures or videos and discuss vehicles for sale with you over the phone. I also offer a review of a vehicle that is for sale on the internet via a video posted on my personal Instagram, GenuineJeremiah.
The Instagram Land Cruiser review video is new, but I’ve helped hundreds of people over the years size up a vehicle they were thinking about buying. I don’t mind volunteering my time for this, but I also recently added a way for folks to show their appreciation financially for the consultation on our online store. Technical Support – Phone Consultation
The second way that I can help is through education — teaching people how to size up vehicles for themselves. This is an ongoing initiative of mine. You can get educated by following along with my content, especially the Land Cruiser reviews, and by following our YouTube series, where there will be an episode dedicated to sizing vehicles up on the internet coming soon.
As always, thank you for reading my blathering.
If you want to learn more about me, here’s a link to my bio. Written by: Jeremiah Proffitt