We Visited The Shop That Invented Insane Off-Road Restomods

We toured Icon 4x4’s facility in Los Angeles to see how the legendary Land Cruiser, Bronco, and Thriftmaster builder works its magic.

By: Chris Rosales

Feb 13, at 4:35pm ET

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If you’re a fan of vintage Ford Broncos or FJ40 Toyota Land Cruisers, you’ve probably heard of Icon 4x4. Jonathan Ward, founder of Icon, and his team practically invented the elevated off-road vintage truck restomod—and they’re still going strong today.

We got a chance to tour Icon for our YouTube channel and see what the shop is up to this year.

If you aren’t familiar with Icon, here’s a quick primer. In 1996, Ward and his wife, Jamie, started TLC, which focused on restoring vintage Toyota Land Cruisers. Ward is a lifelong design obsessive and directed that into TLC’s restorations, but he also identified a gap in the market where his niche could shine.

More than anything, though, Ward wanted to experiment with a design vision he had for Land Cruisers—and practically anything else cool and vintage. From TLC, Icon 4x4 was born.

Icon’s most recognizable builds are the FJ40-based Land Cruisers, but it’s also well known for restoring Ford Broncos and Chevy Thriftmaster pickups. Ward applies his keen design eye and obsession to detail to everything he does. It's not just restomods, either—Icon always has interesting one-off projects in the works.

Photo by: Icon

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Icon doesn’t just redesign and beautify, it reengineers everything. Plastic is replaced with milled aluminum and steel. The suspension is swapped with modern, retuned parts. And the basic attention to detail is unbelievable; Ward specifies architectural glass that has a much higher UV-resistance and anti-reflective coatings. Even the wiring harnesses use high-quality Raychem insulation and Deutsche connectors.

Our video shows much of that quality and attention, and plenty of eye candy to behold. It’s a good one, folks. Enjoy.