Here it is, our brand-new 1961-62 Toyota Land Cruiser* sitting proudly in the front yard of the Currey's desert house in Ocotillo. This is the vehicle I first learned to drive, off-road in the Imperial Valley, and it was a beast! You just knew you could go anywhere with it.**
[From my personal collection]
Dad bought it from John A. Rose's Toyota dealership in Mission Valley and he loved how well-built it was. (He enjoyed pointing out to people how every cotter pin--and other loose part--had its own little chain attaching it to the car so it wouldn't get lost if it fell out on a rough patch of road.) Of course he chose a red one.
*I don't remember exactly what year, but my guess is based on the style of the rear view mirror, the lack of the tiny rear corner windows added in later years and the fact that the yellow/black California license plate was changed to black/yellow the next year. The car was so new that its tags hadn't arrived from the DMV yet.
**One summer we even used it to pull our 21-foot Boles Aero trailer to Oregon and back. I'll have to hunt out a picture of that.
© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.
Well that is a wonderful vehicle. No tread wear on the tires yet! And I'm quite jealous that you learned to drive in such a fantastic piece of machinery. For me, it was a 1958 Chevy station wagon! In 1959 driver ed program at Santa Ana High school.
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