Why Is The Toyota FJ Cruiser So FLIPPING Expensive!?

81 000 that is how much a toyota fj cruiser recently sold for on bring a trailer now all used cars are probably worth more now than they ever have been but one model in particular the fj cruiser has seen a huge jump in value recently and in this video we're gonna try to dissect why is the fj cruiser worth so much money now of course 80 plus thousand dollars for that fj that was the perfect fj it was like a 2014 with under 800 miles it was practically brand new but having said that it still is not uncommon to see a 2013 or 2014 fj cruisers sell for 35 40 45 even 50 000 these vehicles are selling now for more than what they were brand new and the final year of production here in the states 2014 so what is going on well first we have to kind of look at the history of the fj cruiser now this was introduced as a concept vehicle in the early 2000s and then the production model came out for the 2007 model year and you see a ton of 2007 2008 models of course that is a bad time to launch a new vehicle because that was the financial crisis where the markets just tanked and all cars suffered but the fj cruiser it continued on 2007 2008 was the beginning but they sold them all the way up through the 2014 model year here in the us now this is our 2014 fj cruiser we bought this a little while back quite a few months ago and finally your production very clean low owner 60 some thousand miles and we paid 33 000 for this fj cruiser and nowadays i think we could probably sell it for more probably more like 35 to 38 000 if we find the right buyer the secret about the fj cruiser is underneath it is related to the toyota 4runner we see a lot of 4runner bits throughout the drivetrain for example so this has the 4 liter v6 that you'd find in a 400 it's got the five-speed automatic that you'd find in a forerunner even in today's forerunner so that hasn't changed but i think the major reason as to why the fj cruiser has become so popular is because this is one of the very few cars in toyota's recent history where they went a little bit berserk with everything you see i love toyota but they are a company driven by reliability they are focused on longevity and customer appreciation and they are focused on customers that want good reliable well-made transportation and oftentimes that bleeds into every aspect of the vehicle which is great it means they're going to last a long time but it also means that if you look at toyotas especially from this era they can be a little bit dull there's just not a lot of excitement in a lot of their products from this era if you look at like the what like the 4th gen 4runner that era of camry like the avalon right the uh the highlander they last forever they're great cars but they're they're just a little bit dull and then they come out with this thing three windshield wipers weird doors these bizarre lights that nobody knows what they do on the on the mirrors body colored interior panels i mean it's crazy this is like the anti-toyota toyota but it still retains that longevity that reliability and that in my opinion is the reason why these are so cool you know you look at like the ford bronco of today you look at the new jeep wrangler of today you look at the new defender light lots of cool design lots of cool engineering but they're not toyotas and an fj cruiser has proven itself to last 250 300 000 miles with very little difficulty these are vehicles that are not only interesting to look at like a new bronco but will last the test of time and that's what makes them so special and that's why people love them now let's go over some of that weirdness and that craziness first of all you start with the design it looks almost alien this is like practically concept car that made it into production now this is very reminiscent of the original fj40 right from like the 70s the round headlights this grille design the toyota script across the middle different versions of different fj's will have um like a different color trim here i think the latest ones um you could get with like a white grille surround which is cool but you got these funky turn signals that are bright orange along the side you've got a very chopped down front bumper with these little overriders that just go sticking out the side of the bumper like little ears then you come to the mirrors very silver very concept like in the proportion with these little lights built into the side of them and that's before we get to the wildest part the windshield which is practically vertical yet it curves along the edge and then three windshield wipers this was expensive for toyota to do whenever you have a vehicle like this that doesn't share a lot of bits and bobs with other cars from the toyota uh toolbox things get really expensive to build and the f2 cruiser was no exception so while it's based on the underpinnings of a 4runner it is quite a bit shorter than a 4runner so they did reduce the wheelbase which gave it a better um breakover angle and then they gave it one of one of the probably the most controversial parts of the vehicle the clamshell doors and this kind of limited the appeal to a lot of people and in my opinion kind of kept the sales numbers low because a 400 has four doors it's great for families the fj cruiser has four doors but they're clam shells they have to be opened in order and if you've got kids right if you've got dogs that you are taking in and out of here frequently the fact that you have to open them in order is not it's not convenient it's not ideal right you're on the school run little jimmy's got to hop out where you got to open up your door and then he's got to get out of the door and then he's got to close i mean it's just a little bit of a faff and that really did matter to people so this is one of the downfalls of the fj but one of the reasons that it's so valuable today because this really kept the sales low in my opinion monster blind spot by the way incredibly big blind spot on the fj cruiser they they could be had with either contrasting colored roofs or body colored roofs this one of course has a white contrasting roof roof rack up top which is pretty cool and then in the rear right lots of cues from kind of the jeep world with the big full-size spare tire back here um the uh four runner a little bit more tame right you know spare tire underneath where it belongs in this era and then the swing gate another thing which i think kind of limited its appeal to some people the trunk is big but getting into the trunk is a pain especially if you have to street park you got to open the gates or if you just have a small small set of groceries the glass does open as well now let's check out the interior because if you thought the exterior it was weird the interior is just as weird now i think another thing kind of driving the toyota fj cruiser values are the [Music] the the cool mix of modern day usability with kind of retro styling cues so you can buy a vehicle like this that has the weird body color dash that has some funky design but you're not compromising for modern day creature comforts like this has bluetooth audio this has a backup camera this has modern day air conditioning you're not going to like an fj60 where you have to give up some of those safety and convenience features but look at the weirdness like the body color door panels which match the exterior color same thing with the center stack this almost it almost looks after market this radio design i think that's super cool and something you don't see much and it does say fj cruiser and get the key out of my pocket when you open it up yeah that's cool right and then like look at the the bizarre dials on the dash it's got the compass and the little computer and the inclinometer like this is something that toyota just doesn't do this is the untoyota toyota uh but you still don't sacrifice with capability so you think the 4runner is capable well this has just even this one's going on six seven years old this has the same level of capability it's got a track it's got the rear locking diff i think even i think you could have gotten them with the crawl control let me know in the comment section below but it's got proper four wheel drive five-speed automatic or the six-speed manual which made these really special when foreigner went away from the manual the fj cruiser soldiered on with it so lots of cool stuff right like the uh the captain's chairs are comfy these had rubberized floors that you could clean out really the issue with the fj and the biggest flaw that toyota made is they killed it too early they killed this vehicle before the off-road suv craze really took off same thing with the xterra if they had held onto even this exact same design for another two years i mean think about how many hundreds of thousands they would have sold they killed it at the worst time and i understand that fuel economy was compromised and the epa maybe got involved with some cafe numbers but they should have kept building it and that was their their fatal flaw and that's part of the reason that they're so valuable in the used market now i'm going to take this down in andre's pit which is this cool little off-road section and we'll see uh some of that offer of magic in action so proper low-range transfer case with the lever which i like definitely like that another thing about the fj which was one of its biggest flaws was the visibility is just poor it's just got bad visibility very narrow windshield very kind of squatty side windows and that made it hard to see out of and people didn't like that very much but from an off-road standpoint this is equally as good as a modern-day foreigner and i would say in a lot of cases maybe even better with the insane approach and departure angles independent front suspension solid rear axle but you just point them anywhere and they go i think another area where toyota probably sacrificed some sails this was never a convertible you know and i think that when you were appealing to the the jeep buyer right there's a lot of jeep buyers out there that wanted to be able to take the top off and and that was the appeal of the wrangler you could never really get that done in an fj but even still i think you'll find that it can go anywhere now this is not going to be a along in the thoughtful test we've got plenty of those on the channel but i do want to kind of show you just how easily these crawl up anything you point them at you just point them uphill point them downhill a nice low center of gravity in them so they feel pretty confident tackling even off-kilter terrain uh under body protection so as i'm going over these sticks and these rocks they don't have to be too worried about dragging something up from underneath yeah i thought that was going to be a challenge honestly that was that was pretty darn articulated and the fj i just walked up anything you pointed at love them and they're pretty good on the road you know they're not fuel efficient that is also one of the big issues with this vehicle we're talking about 16 17 18 19 miles per gallon maybe at the best but they sacrifice from fuel efficiency but it's a special it's a special rig and i get why they're valuable i totally get it you got the toyota longevity with the weirdness of a bronco with the capability of a jeep all wrapped into one and they don't build it here in the states now they continue building these abroad you might even still be able to buy one in like saudi arabia just bring it over here let's get those used prices down and let me buy one with the warranty that would be really cool guys let me know what you think as always has been telling me behind the camera case we'll see you on the next video

Channel: The Fast Lane Car

Views: 208,693

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Id: fXWyoDWXovI

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 16 2022