Phil Bargman's '76 Toyota Land Cruiser is a mix of fine Japanese styling and strong American components. We would almost go so far as to describe it as having some Yankee ingenuity, but them's fightin' words to a proper southern boy from Piedmont, Oklahoma. The cool thing about our sport is that many of you, like jet fighter test pilots, are willing to risk life and limb to test new ideas on your rigs and push the envelope. Phil has come up with a safe, unusual rig that uses everything from leaf springs to airbags and rolls along on the biggest set of Boggers available.
We don't know if Phil planned on 44s from the start, but it seems like everything was built for them. The 350/350/4.3 recipe gets the power from the TBI 350 engine to the TH350 tranny and through the Atlas 4.3 transfer case. Then all that power drops down to 1-ton axles and hits the ground through those big meats. One of the cool aspects of Phil's rig is the rear suspension that not only uses airbag/air springs but also incorporates a Watt's linkage setup to locate the axle. This system, seen in some cars, involves a propellerlike link mounted to the axle that helps locate it laterally. We always like it when folks take age-old technology and reapply it to build modern-day off-road machines.