We’ve all been subjected to plenty of “When I Was Your Age” stories at the hands of curmudgeonly grandparents at some point over the course of our lives, and almost all of those little tales are designed to remind us how tough the older generation was compared our air-conditioned, microwaved, world-wide-webbed lives. We, of course, shrug these little life lessons off because it seems like old Grandpa Earl is just blowing smoke, but if you stop to look at it—I mean really stop to look at it—those crotchety old folks might actually have a point.
At AskMen.com, one of the manliest websites on the world wide web that our forebears so often complain about, they put this notion to the test by naming the old Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser one of their Top Ten Manly Cars, even though the particular iteration of the vehicle they’re talking about hasn’t been manufactured since 1984.
To be clear, there’s still a Toyota Land Cruiser, but it’s a grocery-getting SUV designed for soccer moms that don’t want to drive a minivan, and there’s still an FJ Cruiser that admittedly looks and drives like a beast, but neither one has the oomph and grunt and muscle behind it that the original does. In fact, I think we could be quite certain that if a ‘60s-era FJ40 Land Cruiser could talk, it would start about 80% of its conversations with, “When I was your age…”
Since they can’t talk, however, we’ll have to let Boynton Beach used car dealerships do the talking for them, because that’s just about the only place left where you could still find one of these things in working order. If you are able to get your paws on one, though, be sure to push it to its full off-road potential. It’s an extremely rugged vehicle, but as reliable as you’d expect from a Toyota, meaning you should feel free to drive it to school through seven inches snow, going uphill both ways. That’s the way your grandfather probably would’ve done it, and then he’d spend the rest of life telling you about how cars just aren’t the same as they used to be.
And again, in this particular instance, he’d probably be right.
