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We drive a Toyota Landcruiser BJ45 from 1984, a car more than 20 years old. Why a Toyota and why a car of this age? When we decided that we wanted to travel by car we had no idea what kind of car to buy so we put the question to the forum of the Lonely Planet, explaining that we wanted to travel to Asia. We received 30 responses and most were positive about the Toyota Landcruiser. The general idea was that it would be best to buy a Landcruiser from before 1987 because they are completely mechanical, without electronic gadgets which can break down and are difficult or impossible to repair in Asia. And above all, they said, a Toyota Landcruiser is a common car in most parts of Asia and spare parts are not difficult to find. By searching the internet we found a BJ45 in Germany and made it our new home for this journey.

Looking back
Afterr 5 years we can say that we are still very happy with. It's our home in which we travel and live with great joy. But it's an old car and although during the first 3,5 years we did not have much maintenance, this last year we seem to be going from garage to garage. Leaf-springs, shock absorbers, batteries, tyres - they all had to be fixed or replaced, but then a car does need attention and most of the repairs fit into the category "regular maintenance". The engine itself is strong and reliable, and runs without any hiccups. Rust is making great progress and driving in the rain is less and less a good idea, but as yet the rust is not something we want to tackle.
It's a relatively small car, so driving through narrow streets is never a problem [contrary to e.g. overlanding trucks]. In Asia we hardly used the car as a house, we always lived outside. In South America this has changed, the cold and rainy weather forced us to spend many hours inside and we have come to acknowledge the comfort of a somewhat bigger car.
But no, let there be no misunderstanding. We don't want another car. This one is and stays our home.

Toyota countries
Holland-Vietnam: Pakistan is LandCruiser paradise because they have many old LandCruisers themselves. Peshawar and Rawalpindi [cities in Pakistan] are good places to get your car fixed. In India there are many Toyota garages, but since by far the majority of the cars consists of modern ones [from 2000 onward], finding spare parts for ours means searching in the bazars, which was always successful. Southeast Asia [Malaysia and Thailand] also has its share of Toyota garages.

South America: Argentina has the same "problem" [for us] as India: only modern Toyotas. Apart from that, Argentina has a high import tax on spare parts of 60%. Chile has more spare parts which are often cheaper [lower import tax]. Basic things like filters and oil are easy to find. Bolivia [and countries further north, where we haven't been yet] will be easier to find spare parts because old LandCruisers are more common. Brazil is best for us, because the series J4 is known there as "Bandeirantes" which was in production until 2001.

4WD a must?
We hardly use 4WD and it certainly isn't a necessity. It may make the decision easier to take a narrow track into the woods or mountains because you know that even when the weather changes [transforming sand into mud tracks] you are likely to get out somehow, because of your 4WD.
Along the way we meet LandRover owners who are just as happy with their choice. Only some modern TD5 cars that we met, have been having serious problems with their computers in South America.

Holland-Vietnam: 4WD is not needed at all, it's all asphalt. If you want to drive off-road, you have to search for it. We met many travelers with regular vehicles like a VW combi or a camper.

South America: on this continent the condition of the roads is far worse. Long distances [hundreds of kilometres] consist of "ripio" [unpaved roads]. During the dry season this is not a problem [except for lots of dust], there are countless regular vehicles on the road of local people as well as overlanders. The point is that the regular vehicles need a bit more planning - driving into Bolivia during the rainy season would perhaps not be such a good idea.

More here http://www.landcruising.nl/lc_en/information/information.html