FIRST DRIVE: Toyota Retro Cruiser A modern-day incarnation of the original '67 Cruiser. By BARRY WINFIELD We were plodding up a steep track in low-ratio four-wheel drive in Toyota's priceless, handmade Retro Cruiser, looking for the easiest route when five-time Pike's Peak winner Rod Millen and the vehicle's builder, said: "Just drive it straight through the middle". The "middle" was a washed-out gulley full of rocks and deep potholes, but we did as we were instructed, and the Retro Cruiser crept and lurched through the section with no problems. Not bad for a wagon dating back to 1967, is it? Of course, the FJ-45 Toyota Land Cruiser you see here has benefited from a complete rebuild, and is now powered by a modern 4.7-liter V-8 engine from Toyota's current Land Cruiser, along with that vehicle's transmission and differentials. But, as you can imagine, getting them to fit under the FJ-45 was a real challenge. To conform to a modern Land-Cruiser's chassis dimensions, the whole FJ-45 body had to be lengthened by 10-inches, and be widened by six inches. Sounds simple, but to accurately fabricate a widened roof, Millen had the original roof digitized (By DZM Design Center in San Diego) then widened virtually on a CAD system. Using that data, he then milled a wooden mold from which a fiberglass roof could be made. To restore structural rigidity lost with the adoption of a fiberglass roof, Millen fabricated a full roll cage inside the cabin.

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