Mr. Iichi Shingu Born November, 1934

< Dealing with top-heaviness >

One reason for the development of the 60-series was to create a model that was less likely to roll. This was because in the Middle East, where people would load the vehicle roof high making it top-heavy, and then drive on dirt at speeds in excess of 100km/h, and this was causing frequent accidents. Investigations revealed that what they were often loading was gasoline cans! Not surprising when you consider there were not any gas stations in the desert along the way, and not being able to load them inside the car there was not much other place to keep them than on the roof. The tread on the 60-series was widened in order to cope with this top-heaviness by providing more stability in cornering.

< Frying eggs on the hood >

We went to the Middle East to see how the Land Cruiser was actually being used there. In this area it is not unusual for the temperature in the daytime to exceed 50-degrees Celsius. Someone suggested it was hot enough to fry an egg on the hood, so we bought some eggs at the next town, and then at the hottest time of day broke some eggs over the hood to put it to the test. Much to our surprise, just sitting in the car the eggs had already become soft-boiled from the heat before we could even try our experiment! Land Cruisers at that time were not built with air-conditioning.