Greg Miller, at the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum in Tooele, Utah. Photos courtesy Expeditions 7.

From an early age, Greg Miller was surrounded by Toyotas, or, more specifically, the family’s vehicle of choice: the Toyota Land Cruiser. Land Cruisers, in their myriad varieties, became something of a passion for Greg, who founded the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum to preserve and celebrate the model’s history. When the opportunity arose to participate in the Expeditions 7 global trek, the Land Cruiser 70 Series was Greg’s go-to vehicle of choice; now that the trip is in the record books, Greg spoke with me about his adventure.

KE – You’re known as a serious collector of Toyota Land Cruisers. What drew you to this make and model?

GM – My family has been affiliated with Toyota, in one way or another since the 1960s. When my dad, Larry H. Miller, was the parts manager at a Colorado dealership in the 1970s, I remember visiting the lot and opening the door of a Land Cruiser FJ40; each car has its own familiar smell, and the Land Cruiser is no different. For me, it makes them very familiar, even today.

Greg (R) with sons Josh and Oakley.

Growing up, we’d often take family vacations in an FJ55 wagon, and my father wasn’t afraid of taking it off road. When I was 13, my father bought a Toyota dealership, and Land Cruisers were always part of the family after that. I even took my driver’s license test in one.

KE – How many Land Cruisers are in your current collection, and what are some of the more unusual models?

GM – I currently have somewhere between 60 and 70 Land Cruisers, many of which are on display at the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum in Tooele, Utah. The rarest one in the collection is a 1958 FJ25, thought to be the very first Land Cruiser imported into the United States. Unfortunately, there’s no way to document this.

As for other models, I have many 70 Series vehicles which were never imported into the United States [Editor's note: We got the J60 series instead, as Toyota believed U.S. customers wanted more luxury with their utility], including some with unique engine and body combinations. I’ve got a Delta, which was a limited-production utility vehicle, based upon Land Cruiser mechanicals, built in the Philippines.  There are a few Blizzards, which were sort of like miniature Land Cruisers, built for Toyota by Daihatsu. I’ve got a PX10, which resembles the modern FJ Cruiser but was built as a limited run experiment by Toyota in the 1990s.

Ultimately, my goal for the museum is to own the finest example of every Land Cruiser model Toyota built.

One of the J78s on the dunes of Africa’s Namib Desert.

KE – When you decided to fund and participate in the Expeditions 7 trip, what led you to choose the Land Cruiser 70 Series over models currently available in North America, like the J200 Land Cruiser, the FJ Cruiser or the 4Runner?

GM – Early on, we realized that a diesel engine would be the most practical in terms of fuel availability and quality in remote locations, and that eliminated any of the current North American Toyota models. We needed something with room enough to serve as a kitchen, bedroom, communication center and go-anywhere transportation, and the 70 Series, specifically the HZJ78, fit the bill. Because it’s sold in a variety of markets around the globe, we also felt that obtaining spare parts for the 70 Series would be easier than with other models.

That said, I have a J200 Land Cruiser as my daily driver, and by mile 55,000 the smoothness of its ride was sorely missed.

The Expeditions 7 fleet in front of the Mano del Desierto in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

KE – You took delivery of the Land Cruiser 78s in New Zealand due to difficulties with importing the vehicles into the United States; what were the obstacles to importing the trucks, and what will become of them now that the expedition is over?

GM – We took delivery in New Zealand as a matter of necessity, since we had the ability to form a corporation there with a minority partner that was a New Zealand citizen. The trucks were purchased and registered there, but were shipped to the United States for modifications as soon as a temporary import permit was arranged. The EPA and the DOT allowed us a six-month window to modify and operate the vehicles in the U.S., after which time they had to be exported.

Greg’s sons Bryce (roof), Oakley (L) and Josh (R) in Australia.

At the end of the trip, I thought about selling the two J78s used on the trip, but I’d grown particularly attached to the one I’d driven on all seven continents. On behalf of the Land Cruiser Heritage Museum, I petitioned the EPA and DOT for a Show and Display exemption for the two rigs, and the permit was granted as long as the vehicles are used for static display and not driven on public roads.

KE- What mechanical difficulties did you encounter along the way?

GM – Fortunately, we had no major mechanical issues on the entire journey, something I’d attribute to the reliability of the J78s and the “mechanical sympathy” of the drivers, who never pushed the vehicles to the breaking point.

We racked up over 150,000 total miles on five Toyota vehicles, and the only common point of failure was an exposed switch that controlled the electronic locking rear differential. These shorted out on several vehicles after 2,000 miles of driving across the Australian Outback, and we found that each failed switch was caked with sand and grit; a simple shield was all we needed to keep it from happening again.

Expedition organizer Scott Brady (L) with Greg in Moscow, Russia.

KE – How did you plan the routes involved with the Expeditions 7 trek?

GM – The expedition had a primary quest and a sub quest. The primary quest was to drive the same vehicle on all seven continents, while the sub quest was to drive iconic routes on all seven continents.  In North America, we wanted to drive the Dalton Highway out of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska; in Europe, we wanted to drive south out of Nordkapp, Norway, since this is the northernmost vehicle-accessible point (by road) in the world. Crossing Siberia, we travelled the M56 Kolyma Highway, known better as the Road of Bones; many of the workers who constructed the road were gulag prisoners, and when they died, their bones were laid beneath the road, atop the permafrost. In Australia, we wanted the challenge of the Canning Stock Route, while in Africa we crossed the Namib Desert and traversed the Skeleton Coast.

Antarctica was its own unique challenge. While I haven’t finished totaling the cost for the expedition yet, I suspect that the segment across Antarctica and back will account for 2/3 of the trip’s cost. Bringing two vehicles, plus fuel, plus participants including a skilled mechanic to the southernmost continent was costly and complex, and forced us to rethink the vehicles required.

Adapting the J78 that I’d driven in other segments for travel across Antarctica would have required permanent modifications that would have had a negative impact on the rest of the trip. Though we brought it down to Antarctica, in the end we only drove it around 50 kilometers on the continent.

Our primary vehicle was an AT44 Toyota Hilux pickup, built by Arctic Trucks in Reykjavik, Iceland, and specially modified for cross-glacial travel. This limited the size of the team, and for support we also contracted with Arctic Trucks to supply a specially built 6×6 Hilux. The modified Hilux pickups were the only non-Land Cruiser vehicles used on the expedition.

On The Road of Bones, somewhere in Siberia.

KE – I’m sure each segment posed its own unique challenges. Was there ever a moment on the trip when you thought you wouldn’t complete the journey?

GM – We had a remarkable group of people involved in the expedition, including a core group of about six people and a total group of about 47 people, though the number on any given segment varied. Once, we were stuck in a flooded salt pan in the Australian Outback, and nothing seemed to work to extract us. We tried winching the truck out, but the winch failed, and ultimately Maxtrax traction boards, working with a second vehicle winch, worked to get us to more solid ground.

Crossing into Peru, we were met with an official who refused us entry, despite the success we’d already had in getting into 25 countries around the world with the same documentation. The official insisted that all vehicles had to be registered in the name of the operator, something that clearly wasn’t the case for the trucks and buses that were streaming across the border. We asked him what our options were, and his blunt response was, “Go back where you came from, or ship the trucks home.”

Luxury accommodations? Not exactly.

Ultimately, it was the Utah Department of Motor Vehicles that interceded on our behalf, and we were allowed entry into the country. In the old days, a bribe may have smoothed things over, but most officials we met on the trip were completely above board.

There were exceptions: We were stopped in one South American country by a state police officer, who threatened to impound our vehicles and have them towed to a nearby town. The reason he gave was that a cracked windshield made them unsafe to drive; however, he gave us the ability to pay the “fine” on the spot and for the equivalent of $20 per vehicle we were on our way.

KE – If you had to distill everything learned on the trip into a single lesson, what would that be?

GM – When it comes to dealing with other cultures, very little separates us. Whether we were in Africa, South America, Siberia, Australia or the United States, people just want to provide for their families. They all want food, comfort, friendship and a bit of fun.

I was lucky enough to have my youngest son along on every continent, and I think it was an amazing experience for both of us. The lessons you learn interacting with other cultures, and perhaps reaching just a bit beyond your normal comfort zone, are lessons they don’t teach in school.

The J78 in Antarctica. A pair of specially prepared Hilux pickups were used to cross the continent.

KE – If you were to participate in the same adventure again, what would you do differently?

GM – We had the right vehicles and we had the right equipment, but there are three things I’d change. First, at least one team member would have to bring a guitar, because the absence of music around the campfire was noticeable. Next, I’d bring a portable scanner and printer to produce the documents necessary for each border crossing; we had a printer, but the absence of a scanner became an issue for us. Finally, I’d place a greater emphasis on team meals; on this trip, many were eaten out of boxes, bags and cans, with no sense of formality. It sounds frivolous, but I’d bring a tablecloth, napkins and utensils to do more formal dinners. That’s something the British always got right on their expeditions.

KE – What will your next big adventure be?

GM – Nothing is in the works, and for now I’m going to try to reciprocate the support given to me by my wife and family. That said, I’d love to drive from Prague to Capetown, which would give me a longitudinal circumnavigation of the world, and I’d love to drive to the North Pole.