PEACE CORP TROOPY
PEACE CORP TROOPY
’85 Land Cruiser Troopy
TEXT AND IMAGES BY BRYON DORR
”WITH ONLY 10 DAYS TO GET IT TO THE SHOW, REGINATO’S FRIENDS AND FAMILY RALLIED TO GET THE TROOPY WORTHY OF BEING DISPLAYED.”
This beautiful ‘85 Land Cruiser Troopy has lived a hard life, but has been given a new lease through Martin Reginato’s passion for well-sorted overland vehicles. Debuting at the 2019 SEMA Show, Reginato turned heads with this eye-catching rig in the iKamper booth. It goes to show how a passion for building off-road vehicles shines through in impressive work over the years, as Reginato has exemplified.
Reginato runs a property management company-a family endeavor-and a 3-D mapping and drone photography business in Salt Lake City. He says that he does “lots of off-road adventures alone, and with my kids, so I look for vehicles that are unique and super capable to take me to impossible places and be able to bring me back home safely.”
Passion for Adventure
Reginato developed a passion for remote off-road adventures as a teenager growing up in the mountain town of San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina. This lakeside mountain town in the middle of Patagonia is full of Land Rover Defenders, Mitsubishi Monteros, and Toyota Land Cruisers. Those pinnacle vehicles were out of reach of Reginato’s budget growing up, but that didn’t slow him down.
His first adventuremobile was a Citroen Furgoneta 3CV. This little front-wheel-drive car that was used like a truck by most, was designed and built after World War II in Germany. It was rugged, easy to fix, and dependable. Reginato says that it was able to take him to the tops of mountains and cross 4-foot-deep rivers. His passion for off-road vehicles was truly solidified by his “beloved Citroneta.”