A conversation with Alexander Wohlfarth about 25 years of Buschtaxi.net and 75 years of the Land Cruiser, about what it is really all about and which Buschtaxi is the best one. We already talked ten years ago, back then for the 15th anniversary of the Buschtaxi forum. Now it is 25 years. Time to catch up with the man who, in 2001, simply got on with it.
We did our last interview ten years ago, when it was 15 years of the Buschtaxi forum. Back in 2005 you were already one of the old hands of the internet. Now it is 25 years. How does that feel? You can already see it in the beard.
Yeah, every grey hair has a name on it. How it feels? Honestly: no idea. I don’t really think about it that consciously, I just do it. It is nice to see that it works and that it is still around. But then, what is going to happen? The community is there and there is a new generation coming through. And the Buschtaxi has two sides: it is not just a forum, there is also the editorial part. But that runs independently anyway. You do it like that, and you keep doing it even when you don’t depend on it. It is my hobby. How does it feel? Good. It runs, it will carry on, and we have a new generation. I think that is great.
Alexander Wohlfarth 2016New generation, as in administrators, or as in people who have bought a Buschtaxi?
Just ordinary users. When you do something like this for so long, especially in a scene that has its own little troubles, you notice the interest in technical topics is dropping. Interest in outdoor and van life is rising, but van life only touches us at the very edges. And getting into the history has not been all that big in recent years anyway, that is fading too. Above all, media use has shifted massively. First to Facebook, then Instagram, and Instagram is still very powerful. And then came the WhatsApp groups. You have no access to those any more, none at all. It is a completely different way of communicating, of sharing, of community. The Buschtaxi has its WhatsApp groups too, of course. But that is not the focus at all, because I want to shape the content and the exchange differently.
My aim was always to keep the forum as a source of information, as a database, to preserve this knowledge. Except that doesn’t just work on Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook. In the WhatsApp groups it is gone, on Insta it is gone, on Facebook it is gone. Try the Facebook search function, forget it. I think people are slowly waking up to that.
Second question, right back to the start: for everyone who doesn’t know exactly, what even is the Buschtaxi? And how did you come to do it back then?
I have been driving off-road since 1992, so you can read my age off my licence. My father bought a Patrol in 1986, we went out in it, he had contact with an off-road club. When I got my licence, I took over the car and joined the club. For a few years we were in Saverne every weekend. My Patrol was a cracking motor, I really loved the K160. Great engine, the suspension proper old school, and you could do things with that car that nobody thought it capable of. But I was always eyeing up the Land Cruiser. Back in ’73 my father had decided against the Land Cruiser and for the Patrol, because the Cruiser had too little room in the back for him. But that car never let go of me, it was always the benchmark.
I had the Patrol, a Suzuki LJ, a Samurai, two Hiluxes, so I was already at Toyota. I slowly worked my way up: buy cars cheap, do them up, drive a few thousand kilometres, sell them again, next step up. And when I finally had the cash together, I went looking for a Buschtaxi and realised: there is nothing on the net. That was the starting point. I had already built the website and forum for the off-road club, we were one of two off-road forums in Germany, alongside the 4×4-Freunde Münster. That was around ’95. And when I went looking for the Land Cruiser, I found nothing. We had nothing, and what we did have was made of wood.
In 1999 I secured the domain. There is a nice anecdote about that, by the way: in 2000 I talked for the first time about wanting to do something like this, at a meet of the Sahara Club in Westhoven. I won’t name names, but I still see the person in question regularly to this day. I told him: look, I am making a website for the Toyota Land Cruiser, I want to call the thing Buschtaxi, and I want people to share and talk. And he said: who on earth is going to look at that?
In January 2001 I sat down, in February 2001 the thing was online, editorial part and forum. That is how it started.
So now, once more, what actually is the Buschtaxi.net?
Let’s start at the front. There is the Buschtaxi forum, but we talk about the Buschtaxi, and that is everything. A big online community with marketplaces, various social media channels and the annual Buschtaxi meet. The editorial part matters a lot to me, even if it is a bit neglected right now, because 25 years of content have genuinely gone into it.
And people share what has broken on their Buschtaxis again?
What has broken on their Toyotas. Buschtaxis are only the long 45s, 75s, 78s, the nickname really only applies to the Troop Carriers. But the Buschtaxi as a platform is there for the Land Cruiser, every series, for the Hilux, the 4Runner, the Mega Cruiser, the Tacoma, the Tundra, anything from Toyota with four-wheel drive and a ladder frame. A RAV4 for all I care, though nothing much happens there. And of course long-distance travel, outdoor, adventure, and other brands get discussed too. “My Patrol has a problem, what can I do?” That happens as well, sure.
2015 to today, tell us what has happened over the last ten years. We had Covid, the meet moved. But what else big has happened?
First of all, life just carried on, life in the forum too. And I do think that constancy is great. That it carries on, that you don’t let yourself get ground down, that people still fancy it, head off, have a debate. In the times we live in, with all the upheaval in society, that is something lovely for me. You mustn’t dismiss it as normal or boring.
Covid was a brutal blow, of course. During Covid I made a two-and-a-half-hour YouTube monster about the Land Cruiser’s history, in three parts, because we couldn’t put on an event for the Toyota Collection in Cologne. That was fun. The meet being cancelled for two years was a hard one, for me but also for the community. A lot changes for people in two years, and a lot did change in that time. What was really special for me was the realisation afterwards: we came together carefree and noticed, the world has changed, but here we have our little paradise, where we simply have an immense amount of fun. The first Buschtaxi meet after those two years was emotionally overwhelming. People come in, take a deep breath and say: home again at last. To feel how much people had really missed it, that was a very special moment.
Otherwise a lot has happened in the scene, with the cars, with the prices. The post-Covid years were the years of the biggest change. An enormous number of new people came along who got into it during Covid. And I noticed a shift, even stronger than before, towards professionalisation. In how things are presented: without an Insta account and without a logo you can hardly show your face any more. Some of them are genuinely good people making great content.
But above all the professionalisation of the gear. I bought my first Buschtaxi in 1999 and let it grow over ten, fifteen years, always adding something. That doesn’t exist any more. Today you buy a car, and in the best case you don’t even see it again after buying it, because it goes straight from the dealer to the outfitter. Then the thing gets loaded up: suspension, wheels, front and rear frames, spare-wheel carrier, maybe a different gearbox, different brakes, roof rack, and then people set off. What has changed is how people deal with the tech. And the tech is really only ever a vehicle for your travel experience. These days it seems the tech is becoming an end in itself.
Maybe this too: everything has to happen right now, people can’t wait any more.
Definitely. Part of that is of course that older people want to make their retirement dream come true. They don’t have a lot of time left, they are in a hurry, they want the thing finished and to get going. I understand that. But something else I have noticed: an incredible number of relatively young people, some under 30, are driving around in cars where I think: mate, how does that even work? There is a car worth €150,000 standing there. You keep having to pinch yourself at how much the world has turned.
Anyway, what has happened over the last ten years? Covid was a huge break, the meet afterwards was fantastic, pretty much every meet afterwards. The new site is top, I really like it. Technically something has moved on the forum, software and so on, but that is not the relevant bit. What is relevant is the shift in mindset. Lots of new people have come along who do cool trips and have great cars.
And on the market an enormous amount has changed: the Land Cruiser with its 2023 facelift, the new engine, old engines being dropped, the registration restrictions. You can’t just bolt a bull bar on any more. This whole development has practically been multiplied in recent years. And we all ask ourselves: where does it go from here? That it carries on is clear. But what will it look like in ten years, in the travel and off-road scene? I think that is why some people are getting a bit twitchy: let me live this now, while I still can.
Something else that has changed, right at the end of this ten-year period: I am currently reworking my book again, “Legende Land Cruiser” (Land Cruiser Legend). It was actually meant to come out last year, then it didn’t, and in the middle of it the original publisher went bust. Now it is set to come out in time for the Buschtaxi meet, with Motorbuch-Verlag.
It is the fourth edition now, but heavily reworked. Not a completely new book, but at least half of it. Because since the last edition in 2018 we have had the 300, the 250 and the J7 facelift, that is three things straight away. Then I gave the chapters a proper going-over: the tone, but also background info, historical details I have picked up since. Somewhere there is always another sentence with an anecdote or a nice little side note. And it is still not enough. At some point I will make it two volumes, I’m telling you.
Let’s talk a bit more about the people. Let’s do some proper pigeonholing: for you, what is the typical Land Cruiser driver? Can you match the different people to the vehicles, or do you say that just doesn’t work?
Honestly: you can’t. The community is so mixed. We have people who are simply into cars and think the J7 is cool. We have people who restore the old cars and don’t bother with anything else, for whom nothing new even exists. We have people who genuinely just want to travel and look for a car for it and end up with a Toyota. That is how it used to be: you look for the car that gets you out there and home again, and you end up with the Land Cruiser.
We have the bling brigade, the ice-cream-parlour crowd, and I don’t mean that as a put-down, everyone can do as they please. What sticks out a little are the oddballs: whoever drives an old 4Runner belongs more to the history generation, they say: I want this car because it has that 90s charm, and I want to keep it alive. But pigeonholes? Doesn’t work.
Staying on people: tell us a bit about the person behind the forum. About you. Sometimes you see photos on Instagram where you are shooting down from chimneys. What else do you do, and what is the story there?
I am an engineer and I come from a fairly funny niche. We used to build steel chimneys for industrial plants, the chimneys you see on factories. My father introduced steel chimney construction in Germany, helped shape the standard, sat on the standards committee, in the quality association. From 1973 that was the topic, and I grew up in the business and eventually took it over. We haven’t built any for a long time, we closed production 23 years ago. But I am still an expert assessor. About half my time I am an expert assessor for steel chimney installations and a qualified specialist for personal protective equipment, fall protection, ladders, inspections. Hence the photos looking down from up top.
So you don’t have a fear of heights.
I have respect. Enormous respect for heights, and you need it, because whoever has no respect simply dies. There are good days and bad days. You might be standing at 50 metres thinking: I could do without this today. Not that I cling to the ladder and can’t get down again, it is not that, more of an underlying feeling. But I really enjoy it, it is great fun. The second part of my life is communication, after all. One has nothing to do with the other, but I like simply doing what I can and what I fancy. I have set it up so that I can divide it up like that. Yesterday I spent the whole day on a building site, inspecting chimneys and partly repairing them. And that does me good. To do something with your hands and say: there, I did that. It keeps you grounded.
And that even though you are up in the sky.
The way up keeps you grounded. That would make a nice line for one of those kitchen calendars.
Through the forum you also have a close partnership with Toyota and the Toyota Collection. Do you want to tell us a bit about that, some highlights too? I have this memory that you are almost on first-name terms with the Japanese management.
I have had good contact with Toyota for a long time. At some point the idea came up to open a museum in Cologne, a collection was bought up, and the museum was to be created in the old tennis hall. Back then I said to the head of press: guys, you need someone to look after the community. You can’t just open a museum. Toyota neglected that for 20, 30 years, to the point where people were genuinely fuming.
In the classic and youngtimer scene there was this mantra: “Toyota doesn’t care about us.” And it was true: there was a time when the fans and freaks didn’t matter. The ones driving around in their old buckets, over the moon that they got a new steering wheel.
Then the Collection came, and I had the great honour of being asked to get involved a little. And I saw the chance to make a bit of a difference for the community. In the end I do the same thing there as with the Buschtaxi, just extended to the whole Toyota classic scene. I look after the social media channels and take care of the solid historical content, far away from influencers prancing about and pretty photos with nothing in them. When I write texts there, it hurts, you have to be up for it. And they let me get on with it, I am allowed to hold forth in the nerdiest way possible about the history of the A engine or the like. Toyota has gone down an incredible road there and created something big with this Collection. It opens once a month, and I am there once a month setting the themes for the public openings. Last time it was a JDM day with a Century meet, next time it is off-road, 75 years, on 1 August, fittingly enough.
At the public openings I feel the same thing as at the Buschtaxi. People have all got that one fixation. Some come along who have lived their Corolla, their Starlet, for 40 years, who know every bolt. And it is an absolute joy. I always wanted a museum, I still haven’t managed it, but now I have my little museum in Cologne with a small row of Land Cruisers. And when people come in, the most common sentence is: “I had one of those once.” The second: “If only I had never sold it.” And the third: “It never let me down.” Those are the three highlights, and exactly what we know from the Land Cruiser world too.
It is enormous fun, because I work so much with the community. The community is the load-bearing pillar of the whole thing, they fill the car park with their cars. In the summer months, at the big events, we have to open the second car park because there are hundreds of cars. When it is an AE86 meet, you look along the row: there they stand, noses nicely lined up, GR86 on the other side. And you feel this happiness, this irrepressible joy, at simply being there, sharing, talking about the old motors. “Look, I’ve got new wheels.” “Where did you get those?” “Bought them off a pensioner.” Exactly the stories we know from the off-road world too.
I am a small light. The world is changing brutally, people are overwhelmed by everything, because more and more keeps flooding in on them. It starts with the little things, just try downloading an app and figuring it out, or configuring your router, and it goes all the way to real social and political matters that shape our future. People are so overwhelmed. And if you, as this small light, put on an event once a month or once a year and say: folks, come by, it is as easy as it gets, you don’t even have to register. There is no entry fee at the Collection, there is something to eat and drink, two guided tours. Just be there, have a natter with us and have fun. Registering only helps me: if you let us know you are coming, send me a picture, then I post it. But you don’t have to do anything at all. And if you can give people, for a few hours, or for a whole weekend at the Buschtaxi meet, the feeling that everything is actually all right, that people are pretty cool and it is fun to make new friends: what more can I achieve in life? That is the driving force. That is what it is about.
And it is mad what emotions a car like that can stir up. This bond you have with a car like that, you can’t put it into words. It is just an old car, for heaven’s sake. But between us: I switched too. My Buschtaxi is off the road, sitting nicely mothballed in the hall, because it still has no underbody protection and no cavity sealing. Then I drove a 90 for a long time, a really great car, until the rear axle was so far gone that I had to say: not any more. It is still here, it will get done at some point, we’ll talk again in 20 years. Then I briefly drove a 95. There are cars that fit and cars that don’t. The 95 had leather, wood trim, electric seat adjustment. I like the 95, but I never warmed to it. And then an 80 crossed my path. So since the start of the year I have been driving an HDJ80. There too, the 80 and I needed some time, the affection was there, but the familiarity had to grow. But we became friends. I think this could be my car for a long time now. When you let it sink in how daft it actually is, the emotions you can pour into a car like that. But it is glorious.
That was actually going to be my next question: of all the Land Cruiser models from 75 years, which one means the most to you personally? And why?
Interesting that you ask. Last year at the Buschtaxi meet a young Buschtaxi friend came up to me and asked: what is your favourite Land Cruiser? I was stunned at first, I didn’t even know when I was last asked the question. The trouble is: when you are standing in the sweet shop, you can’t decide what to pick. I have driven them all, I think they are all cool, there is something I like enormously about every Land Cruiser and every Hilux. But afterwards I made a list and published it two weeks later.
Number 1, no question: my Buschtaxi. There is no getting past it, it floats above everything. That is my 75, built in ’75, it got a different engine, parabolic springs, a nice interior build, fully restored in 2016 down to the last bolt. In that car I have been to North Africa, the Middle East, all over Europe. It is light, unbelievably strong and, in my view, has the best engine they ever built: the 12H-T, a direct-injection diesel with four litres of displacement that responds like a carburettor engine. You tap it and the thing roars and kicks you in the back and goes off like a rocket. A completely mad engine.
And then there are others, of course. I am terribly fond of the J4, a BJ40 or FJ40 is simply a cool car. A ’71 is great because it is so short, and then as an FZJ please, with the 4.5-litre petrol. I like the KDJ90 a lot, in my opinion the most underrated Land Cruiser. Excellent suspension, even though it has independent front suspension, nimble, the smallest turning circle of all Land Cruisers, sometimes drives like a go-kart, and thanks to permanent four-wheel drive you have traction at all times. Huge fun.
But when you think about which one to buy, what you want to be out and about in, you keep coming back to one corner, everything always leads to one: the 80. The 80 is still the benchmark. The engineer behind the current 300 said plainly: the 80 was our reference point. It has the best suspension, it is a solid, heavy car with a mighty engine, the 1HD-T. It is a steam engine, mostly producing heat and a bit of movement, and below 2000 revs nothing happens, but from 2000 it kicks you in the back like a mule. The 80 is simply the benchmark for everything.
And now comes the twist. The 75, 42, 71, 80, 90 are all old cars. If you ask me today which car I would build for the next trip, free to choose everything, everyone is going to lynch me now: I would buy a GDJ76. The current Land Cruiser with the 2.8-litre turbodiesel and the automatic gearbox. Because you have never driven a Land Cruiser so effortlessly. The size suits me perfectly, I sit in it as if the car had been tailored for me. You have all-round visibility, huge windows, you sit by the door and look straight down, you can see everything. A five-door that still shrugs everything off, genuinely heavy duty. And a modern four-cylinder with 204 hp and 500 Newton metres. My 80 with 4.2 litres has 170 hp. Who needs more than that? It has a six-speed automatic that always keeps it nicely in the sweet spot between 1800 and 2000. The thing is totally relaxed, that is the one I would buy.
And can that be converted into a travel vehicle too?
Absolutely. But you can’t afford it, unfortunately. The Land Cruiser market is swept clean, they can’t keep up with production, and at the same time everything gets bought up. The J7s we get in Germany through the independent importers are cars from the Arabian Peninsula. Some Chinese buyer stands there and says: I’ll give you $30,000 more. Then the dealer says to the German importer: add the 30,000, or the Chinese buyer gets the car. We used to be at a retail price of €110,000 here, currently as far as I know around €100,000 for a bare car, a VX with Alcantara seats and a display up front. But it is still a J7 with nothing in it: no roof rack, no suspension, no build. Even so you can set off just like that: throw an air mattress in the back and away you go. What more do you want? There are maybe two on the market in Germany right now. Barely to be had. But that would be the car I would buy. I am a nerd, after all.
Buschtaxi meet 2026: 25 years of Buschtaxi, 75 years of the Land Cruiser. That is crying out for something special. Tell us what is planned.
Oh dear… above all we are going to have a wonderful Buschtaxi meet. Boring, I know. But that is what it is about, isn’t it. Of course there will also be some anniversary bits over the coming months, nice anniversary clothing, a prize competition, special deals from the dealers, a Land Cruiser special edition, the new edition of my book, that kind of thing. All of that will play the anniversary theme a little. But the question is: do you always have to do something special? That this community exists is already the main prize. Terribly cheesy, I know. Don’t laugh. But experience also shows that anniversaries like this don’t actually matter that hugely to people any more, they get bombarded with them from all sides. Most of these special promotions are more about entertainment anyway. And I think an occasion like this should not just serve to keep people amused, it should not be a monologue. If anything, it should have value, whether solid or sentimental. And I can’t do all that much anyway, I am already at the limit of what is possible.
A Land Cruiser special edition? How so?
We were just talking about kitted-out cars and the price spiral. But the Land Cruiser originally comes from a different corner. Here in Western Europe in particular, the so-called Light Duty, the third Land Cruiser series, really got the market going. The Bundera from 1984, the Prado from 1990. For a long time those were very simple but comfortable cars: not much in them, relatively light, a good basis for almost anything. You could potter about in it day to day, tow heavy trailers, go hard off-road, do trips or long-distance travel. The one car for everything. At a reasonably affordable price. That is a bit missing today. The current Prado starts at €92,000. That is no longer an affordable all-rounder.
What I miss is a base Prado. And one of the importers has now put exactly that together as an “Anniversary” model. 25 years of Buschtaxi, 75 years of the Land Cruiser. And with it a simple Land Cruiser 250 with the 2.4-litre turbo petrol. No frills, no extra luxury. No Multi Terrain Select, no Crawl Control, manual seat adjustment, cloth seats. Just cavity sealing, underbody protection, decent tyres on top. And the BT-LC anniversary logo on the headrests and C-pillars. A car you can grab exactly like that and set off in. And that is then allowed to grow over the years. And all that for just under €70,000. That is still a lot of money, but by comparison the price is absolutely good.
The idea comes from Veit and Tom of Toms Fahrzeugtechnik. And I think it is great. In the same breath the others have to be mentioned too. There are super promotions from Taubenreuther, from TD Experience, from Allrad KEBA. And more will certainly follow. Lots of dealers want to give something back to the community now, in the anniversary year. That deserves just as much recognition. None of them would have to. But they want to. I appreciate that.
The new Hilux will be at the BTT too, as a mild hybrid and as a BEV. The electric one is getting a small conversion, some suspension, a roof rack, a bit of a purposeful look.
Another ten years of the Buschtaxi forum: ten years ago you hoped that in the end not everything would be talked to death and there would be no topics left. How does it look today, are there still topics? And what do you wish for the next ten years?
There are plenty of topics, nothing has changed there. People will always keep talking about old cars. What I wish for, and I have to limit it to the Buschtaxi, not the world, is that the community keeps working for the next 25 years too. That people appreciate what we have created there, and that they treat each other with goodwill. We are all noticing that the tone is getting rougher. A really dumb thing to say, but the point is: people are getting impatient, merciless, they leave each other less and less room. We notice it everywhere, especially online. I don’t even want to get into the YouTube comment sections. But even in the forum the mood sometimes has its challenges.
I would wish for people to keep coming back to it and saying: let’s slow down. Over there sits a human being who is struggling with things, I am struggling with things. I don’t like what he says, why don’t I like it? Is it stupid because it is stupid? Perfectly fair enough. Or is it stupid because, for some reason, that is how I feel about it? Reflection is everything. I would wish for people to reflect on themselves regularly and think about what is actually going on, so that we hold on to what we have there. I am not worried, we’ll sort it. There is a moderation team that keeps saying: folks, is this really necessary? Squabbles have been around as long as humanity has.
What else I wish for: that it carries on, that I can do cool things for and with the Buschtaxi. And one point that often goes through my head: I wish for small, fine, lovely solutions again for the cars, for travel, for being out and about. Away from “Bam!” and back to “Hey, that is cool.” And the chance for the little ones, not the big companies, to get something like that off the ground: I made a 3D print, it solves a problem, doesn’t cost a million, you plug it in, it works. We have lost that a little. We have every possibility, but what you can buy in terms of possibilities costs silly money and often solves problems that don’t even exist. I have the feeling the little ones have given up a bit, because they say: how am I supposed to go up against the big manufacturers with their CNC mill, their laser cutter, their 3D scanner? I have to muddle along. A few do it anyway. At the show I saw a small, fine solution, it was about blankets. That is the sort of thing I wish for again. That something moves in the scene.
Bottom line: it is not “Bam, buy, bang, with the lot.” It is carrying on, having fun, living lovely moments, the same as ten, twenty years ago, without wanting everything. The Buschtaxi never wanted to grow at all costs. I always valued the independence. That is the essence. If I had to make a living from it, it wouldn’t work. But a bit of modesty, keeping things in proportion now and then, that is what it is about. It is not about “bang”, it is about the people, about the fun we have together. If I can give people something, just through the platform, or by them meeting up and taking a good feeling home with them. That is my drive. Here’s to the next 25 years.