Californian custom truck maker ICON is celebrating an important milestone, the 500th bespoke vehicle to come off its production lines. Over the years, we’ve followed founder Jonathan Ward’s journey as he turned a niche restoration garage into a cult business, beloved by Hollywood types and auto enthusiasts alike. Ward set up ICON with his wife Jamie in Los Angeles in 2003, a development of his earlier business, TLC 4x4.
ICON is a pioneer of restomod culture, the art of taking an existing classic car and upgrading and enhancing it for modern tastes without losing sight of the original design. This 500th Toyota Land Cruiser FJ44 is a celebration of the very model that inspired the creation of TLC 4x4 over 30 years ago.
The Wards had been travelling in Africa and got to appreciate the iconic Toyota design. ‘I came back from safari with my eyes completely opened to the incredible capabilities of these old, vintage Land Cruisers after seeing what they could do in the wild in harsh terrain,’ he recalls. ‘Experiencing firsthand what a Land Cruiser could do out there in that very serious, highly varied environment made a huge impression and encouraged me to start TLC 4x4, the restoration business that predated ICON.’
The first Land Cruisers were designed in the 1950s, and Ward has come to specialise in the second series, the J40s, built from 1960 all the way through to 1984 (and even surviving until 2001 in Brazil). Japan’s answer to the American Jeep, the Land Cruiser was rigorously over-engineered, capable of tackling any terrain and coming in a variety of body styles, from pick-up truck to short- and long-wheelbase variants.
This model, the 1964 ICON New School Edition FJ44, bears all the hallmarks of a typical ICON project, as well as the attention to detail that made the company’s name. Over the course of hundreds of ground-up rebuilds and repairs, Ward and his team know the model inside out, as well as the more esoteric and rare variants like the limited edition 1977 FJ40.
The restomod business evolved out of an early TLC 4x4 project to rebuild a 1965 FJ43. The client didn’t just want the nuts and bolts to be all-original – they wanted to up the quality and performance levels to achieve something no Land Cruiser had ever been before. ‘It sounds rather simplistic now, but at the time, I can assure you it was pretty radical as a concept, says Ward.
‘This restored FJ43 showcased the nascent stages of ICON with this super premium charcoal grey metallic exterior colourway from Audi and these high-end German leather seats integrated into the build. Now, today’s enthusiasts will think, “no big deal”, but absolutely no one at the time in 2002 was integrating German luxury into a Land Cruiser.’
As Ward notes, the concept of transforming utility vehicles into luxury ones is relatively commonplace these days, whether it’s electrified Range Rovers, upgraded Land-Rovers or reinvented 1970s Jeeps. Twenty years ago, the market was wide open. ‘It started us down this very cool pathway of reimagining these beloved, but at this point, purely utilitarian Land Cruisers.’
This early work also led to a collaboration with Toyota itself, part of the Japanese giant’s project to reinvent the Land Cruiser aesthetic with its retro-styled FJ Cruiser model. ICON was born out of the experience. Central to its process is upgrading and uprating the Land Cruiser experience, avoiding what Ward describes as the ‘martyrdom of driving a vintage car’. Better brakes, chassis and suspension could all be accommodated by the immensely flexible Land Cruiser platform, which still serves as an easily accessible kit of parts to swap in and out.
ICON’s 500th Land Cruiser: New School Edition 1964 FJ44
At the heart of this New School Edition 1964 FJ44 is a 6.2L V8 engine, a manual gearbox and sports brakes and suspension. The four-seat interior has been re-trimmed, with two jump seats added at the rear, and there’s also a roof rack and ladder, with side-fitted power steps to ease access up to the cab. As well as the mechanicals, the electronics is all-new, and includes a new hi-fi, rear camera, and LED headlights. Every facet of the build can be customised, and regular repeat business shows that ICON’s customers are a loyal bunch who value the mix of idiosyncratic Japanese functionalism with modern-day cruising capabilities.
ICON hasn’t just confined itself to Land Cruisers. The company’s portfolio extends to reworkings of the classic Ford Bronco (the BR series), the Chevrolet 3100 pickup from the 1950s (TR series) the ongoing collection of unique ‘Derelicts’, quirkier one-off projects that blend hot-rod aesthetics with heavy patination, and ‘Reformers’, which do a similar job without the built-in aged aesthetic. Jeeps, Land-Rovers, even Rolls-Royces, have all had the ICON treatment. The company is always open to new challenges.
