Caught this on the 5N today...








Nice looking silver FJ. Maybe part of a Toyota marketing campaign?
It had some fancy wheels (TRD I think), and a winched ARB front bumper.

 

No no no no no...
That is one of the Trail Teams that is going around America to off road parks and your club events everywhere.

They are paid by Toyota to drive in a totaly stock FJ Cruiser except for an ARB bumper and winch to wheel the hell out of them.
Every night after a trip they setup an inflatable screen and show you the vids and treat you to a barbeque.

They let you drive the FJs too.
They are doing this for around 6 months or so.

Learn more here.
http://www.toyota.com/fj/

The drivers post over on Mud's FJ forum
http://forum.ih8mud.com/forumdisplay.php?f=41

There are plenty of videos on the Toyota site, and even a lot on the Canadian Flash site.
You can find that with a search with my username and Canadian in this section.

 

Well...Thank you Mr. Cruiser.

Eh, one could argue that's part of Toyota's marketing of the FJ, even if it demonstration and promotion to a niche group.

But still that's pretty cool of Toyota.

 

More info here
http://www.toyota.com/FJTrailTeams

Go to #2 and select vids, watch a very cool vid,
Badlands park.

They show you how the A Trak works, and this often is better than a locker in certain conditions.

 

Cal, herre are some good shots of the Toyota Trail Team and others from a very active FJC forum.
The event was not made public this time on their website, byt anyone could have came.
http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forum...ead.php?t=4163

There is a link in there also to a video and more pictures in the above link, but I will put the movei link here too.
http://www.jeepengineering.com/fj/Left_Turn_Hell_2.WMV

PS...
A little disapointed in the vid, it was waaaaaay to short.
I was expecting to see a lot more action than that.

 

Steve just tried one out this weekend at the SE4RJ. He drove and picked up some marketing swag. He said it was a neat set up.

 

they were at rockport a few weeks ago.

 

I would have expected some more aggressive tires than some all terrains???

 

Saw those cats in Moab. Looked like the Boyscouts on crack.

The schwag they hand out specifically notes both that it is a trail oriented rig and that any modification will void warranty.

The gripe I have is at least one crapped a diff in Moab. The team members had a chance to be reasonable about it but treated the public like kids saying nothing happened. When confronted that we saw a Trail Team rig getting hauled out on a roll back, the driver played dumb.

Wish they had something to market. The new FJ competes well with the Xterra, not the Rubicon or trail Jeeps.

 

for a stock vehicle you dont think it competes with the rubicon?
exterra my butt , it will walk all over an exterra , toyota has gone the right direction here and the after market world is all a blaze with great products.

i think ill go test drive a rubicon and see how i feel , about it , then ill compare price tags.

airrikk17

 

I have met with the guys working on new 4Runners.

I have worked on the FJ's.

I have wheeled with the Rubicons.

Two lockers, a crawler box beat the hell out of the FJ out of the box. Add a solid front axle and it is done.

 

Speaking purely off road...Stock for stock, the xterra and FJC are twins. The rubicon's not even in the same league.

 

yeah, the rubicon is waaaay farther out there. The new FJ is a cool idea, and comes with nice options, but its no FJ-80. Those were the closest toyota's ever come to challenging what Jeeps got in the rubicon. The crawl box, wheelbase, and aproach/departure angles are where the jeep shines through.

Xterra is essentially the same. Lockers are offered, not sure about the ATrac, but still, very similar.

As for price, not too different. The FJ, ithink, with all the options is like 30k. Jeeps gonna be within 10k of that probably. Not too sure on jeep prices though.

 

Oh, and last i heard that was 2 FJ's with roached diffs. Mostly yahooing i think, but could be a weakness.

 

Here's a few pics I rounded up from the SE4RJ3 in Tellico this past weekend. We had some incredible photographers on that trip.

 

I have a 2005 Xterra with the rear locker. The Xterra comes with what Nissan calls ABLS which is basically the same as the ATRAC.

I agree the Rubicon is not in the same league as the FJ or the Xterra.