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When Jonathan Ward opens the door of one of his FJ restorations, the first thing that catches my eye is a dongle hanging from the zipper holding the window closed. They’re little white and black balls, woven from a string of nylon, and they hail from a village in South America, Ward tells me, as part of a micro-loan program meant to create business opportunities in the region. Ward added them because he hates the clinking sound the zipper would otherwise make when the truck is in motion. As for the zippers themselves, Ward tells me “in my world, just trying to get zippers to a specific length and gauge… its fuckin’ impossible!”
Ward is truly a next-level perfectionist.
The rest of the interior is equally over-engineered. Ward expresses deep loathing of plastic, so he goes out of his way to make sure he can replace original plastic parts with metal: the air-conditioning vents, knobs, handles and switches — to name a few — are all CNC’d stainless steel. The console is also custom made my ICON, albeit begrudgingly. “The biggest US console maker is totally asleep at the wheel. I designed this and handed it to them and asked ‘Please can you make this? How about a double-DIN? How about gas shocks for the lid? How about stainless steel? How about, USB power ports and serviceable cup holders?” And they said ‘Well, no one else is complaining’ So that forced me into making our own.”
If you’re familiar with ICON 4×4 — and if you love off-roaders and overland-ready rigs, you really should be by now — you’ll know that its trucks usually cost six figures and, thus, are popular with celebrities and the just-plain monied. You’ll probably know that his restorations are all powered by brand new crate engines, feature extensive chassis modifications and badass matte paint jobs.
But what most people don’t always realize is the level of detail that goes into making the trucks absolutely perfect inside and out. Many shops will use whatever automotive parts are available but Ward wants his restorations to use the best materials possible, and he often has to go outside the automotive industry. The sun visors, for example, are made by a company that makes OEM parts for Learjet. The interior cargo netting isn’t automotive grade, but sports grade supplied by Nike — it’s more durable, according to Ward, and he uses it so it doesn’t look like “blown-out underwear” after a few years of use. The wooden beds of his Thriftmaster hot rods — some of which have Horween leather interiors — he likes to play around with, but the example he shows me uses carbon-dated, 5,000-year-old Irish bog-wood. “Fuckin’ nuts,” he exclaims. Fuckin’ nuts, indeed.
