From the Land Cruiser Collectors Club. Both of these are good trucks. This is about which one fits how you will actually use it.
Park an FJ60 next to an FJ62 and most people cannot tell them apart. Same 60-series wagon body, same solid axles, same square-shouldered stance that has aged better than almost anything else from the 1980s. The differences are under the hood and in the transmission tunnel, and they change the ownership experience more than the shared bodywork suggests.
The short answer
If you want a simple truck you can fix at the side of a trail with hand tools, and you do not mind a carburetor, buy the FJ60. If you want to drive it regularly, start it reliably on cold mornings, and spend less time on tuning, buy the FJ62.
What they share
Everything that makes a 60-series a 60-series. Body-on-frame construction, solid axles front and rear, leaf springs, part-time four-wheel drive with a two-speed transfer case, and an interior built to a standard nobody applies to family vehicles anymore. Parts commonality across the range is good, and the enthusiast support for both is excellent.
The engine, which is the real difference
The FJ60 runs the 2F — a 4.2-litre carbureted inline-six that traces its design lineage back decades. It is not powerful and it was never trying to be. What it is, is comprehensible: you can understand the entire fuel system by looking at it, and there is very little on the engine that cannot be diagnosed with basic tools and patience.
The FJ62 runs the 3F-E, a 4.0-litre fuel-injected inline-six. Electronic fuel injection changes the daily experience more than the modest power difference does. Cold starts stop being an event. Altitude stops mattering. The engine holds its tune instead of drifting with the seasons.
The tradeoff is exactly what you would expect: the FJ62 adds sensors, a wiring harness and an ECU to a truck that otherwise has almost no electronics. Those parts are now old. They are generally reliable and generally available, but a fuel injection fault is a different kind of afternoon than a carburetor fault.
Transmission
This is the practical dividing line for a lot of buyers. In the US market the FJ62 was sold with an automatic, while FJ60s are commonly found with a manual. If a third pedal is non-negotiable for you, that narrows the decision considerably and you can stop reading here.
Neither choice is wrong for the truck. The automatic suits the way most people use a 60-series now — road miles, occasional trails, hauling things. The manual suits low-speed technical driving and people who simply prefer it.
Emissions and registration
This varies enough by state and country that the only honest advice is to check your own rules before you buy, not after. Carbureted trucks and injected trucks sit differently under different inspection regimes, and in some jurisdictions an older vehicle is exempt entirely while in others it is not. It is a five-minute phone call and it has ended purchases.
Which one holds value
Condition dominates. A rust-free FJ60 with honest miles is worth more than a tired FJ62 in every market we watch, and the reverse is equally true. Neither model has a meaningful premium over the other that survives contact with a rusty frame — which is why we would tell anyone choosing between two specific trucks to inspect them for rust before weighing the engine at all.
How to choose
- Weekend truck, trails, you enjoy wrenching: FJ60.
- Regular driver, cold climate, want it to just start: FJ62.
- You want a manual: that decision is mostly made for you.
- You found one clean example and one rusty one: buy the clean one, whichever it is.
That last line is not a cop-out. Across every 60-series conversation we have, the truck people end up happy with is the one that was looked after, not the one with the preferred induction system.
What actually breaks, and what it costs you in time
Neither truck has a signature catastrophic failure, which is most of why they are still on the road. What they have instead is a list of predictable wear items, and knowing them turns a scary-looking inspection into a shopping list.
On both: steering boxes develop play, birfield joints in the front axle need periodic attention and are a known service item rather than a fault, exhaust manifolds crack, and the heater and vent systems get tired. None of these are reasons to walk away. All of them are reasons to negotiate.
Specific to the carbureted FJ60: the emissions plumbing on US trucks is elaborate, and after forty years it is frequently been simplified by a previous owner — sometimes competently, sometimes not. Look at what is still connected and ask questions. A carburetor that has been rebuilt by someone who knew what they were doing transforms the truck; one that has been adjusted by everybody who ever owned it does the opposite.
Specific to the injected FJ62: age-related electrical issues. Connectors corrode, grounds get lazy, and sensors drift. The failure mode is usually a truck that runs but runs oddly, which is harder to diagnose than a truck that will not start. Budget for a systematic going-over of the harness connections rather than shotgunning parts at it.
Living with each one
The honest daily-driving difference is smaller than internet arguments suggest and larger than spec sheets do. The FJ62 is easier in traffic and in cold weather. The FJ60 asks slightly more of you and gives back a truck with fewer things that can go quietly wrong.
Fuel economy on both is what you would expect of a two-and-a-half-tonne brick with 1980s aerodynamics. Nobody buys one of these to save money on fuel, and anyone telling you their 60-series is economical is measuring something other than fuel.
What to budget beyond the purchase price
Assume that any 60-series you buy, however clean, will want a first round of sorting: fluids all round, brakes gone through, cooling system refreshed, and whatever the previous owner had been living with rather than fixing. This is not pessimism, it is the normal cost of taking over a forty-year-old vehicle, and it is far cheaper than the alternative of finding out at the roadside.
The trucks that turn into money pits are almost never the ones that needed a water pump. They are the ones where rust was underestimated at purchase.
The Land Cruiser Collectors Club is an independent enthusiast community. Club gear here. Not affiliated with Toyota Motor Corporation.