Shauno's 60 Series Ute Build Is Finally Done, and Nothing About It Is Normal

Shaun Whale goes by Shauno, and if you want to understand why the Dirty 30 mk II exists, you need to know about the truck that came before it. Shauno's original HJ61 LandCruiser accumulated over 400,000km across some of the toughest tracks in Australia before it was finally retired. A guy who puts that kind of distance on a Land Cruiser the hard way is not the kind of guy who builds his next truck carelessly. The Dirty 30 mk II is what happens when someone with that background decides to start fresh, think through every single decision, and take four years to get it right.

The concept is what makes this build genuinely unusual: three Toyota generations folded into one truck. The body is a Toyota LandCruiser Sahara 60 Series, chopped into a single-cab ute. The platform underneath it is an 80 Series chassis with an 80 Series solid axle setup. The engine and transmission come from a 100 Series. To make those three generations work together coherently takes a level of fabrication knowledge that most builders don't have, and a level of patience that most people won't sustain for four years. Shauno has both.

The paint is Sandy Taupe, and it's a color choice that rewards attention. It sits somewhere between khaki and warm grey, and it ties together every tan-toned accessory on the truck, from the color-matched rings on the STEDI Type-X Pro 8.5-inch front lights to the tan Dirty Life bead lock rims, in a way that looks intentional rather than assembled. That coherence doesn't happen by accident.

Start with what's under the hood, because this is where the build immediately separates itself from a standard 60 Series restoration. The original engine in a truck like this made roughly 199Nm of torque and 47kW. Shauno replaced it with a 1HD-FTE, Toyota's 4,164cc DOHC inline-six turbodiesel, sourced from a 100 Series. In standard form the 1HD-FTE made around 430Nm. Shauno's unit is not in standard form. A bigger turbo running 20 PSI, a PWR intercooler, and a tune bring it to over 700Nm of torque and 220 horsepower. That is not a mild upgrade over stock. That is a fundamentally different powertrain in a body that was never designed to contain one. The engine breathes through a 4-inch stainless steel snorkel and a custom airbox.

The transmission is a tuned 5-speed Tiptronic automatic sourced from a 100 Series, fitted with an Extreme valve body and managed by a COMPUSHIFT transmission controller. The COMPUSHIFT handles the Toyota A750F transmission and enables genuine manual-mode capability through a tiptronic-style shifter. On the chassis side, the 80 Series foundation brings its solid axle setup, and both ends are fitted with air lockers fed by an onboard air compressor. The suspension runs a 3-inch remote reservoir lift with coils front and rear, and braking has been overhauled with a Bendix 4WD Upgrade Kit to match the increased capability everywhere else.

Rolling stock is 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Mud Terrain tires on the 15-inch tan bead lock Dirty Life rims. When Shauno takes the truck to the United States, the plan is to step up to 37-inch tires.

The tray is a Mits Alloy unit with a half-canopy package. Inside that canopy lives at least one MyCoolman fridge, and the power to run it comes from 200Ah of lithium managed by a RedArc Red Vision system. Camp lighting is handled by four STEDI Quad Pro lights on the roof and a pair of 7-inch STEDI lights on either side. The headlights themselves have been upgraded to STEDI 7-inch globes. Recovery gear includes a Runva 11XP Red Edition winch controlled from an in-cabin switch and four color-coordinated tan MaxTrax XTremes. Communication is handled by a GME 6.6 dBi UHF antenna. A hard-top rooftop tent and a 2.5m x 2.5m awning take care of camp setup.

The name "OG Dirty 30" is a thread that runs through both builds, and it reflects what Shauno set out to preserve across generations of the project: the same character, the same mission, updated execution. The mk II designation acknowledges what the HJ61 was before it, without pretending this truck is anything other than a completely new machine built around a proven philosophy.

Four years is a long time to live with an incomplete truck. But the record since completion tells you whether the patience was justified. Shauno has put over 30,000km on the Dirty 30 mk II and done it across Cape York, the Kimberley, and Fraser Island, which is a shortlist of destinations that will locate any weakness in a build with reliable efficiency. The fact that the truck is still running, still being driven hard, and already on its way to a US trip with a tire upgrade planned says more about the quality of the work than any walkaround ever could.

Three Land Cruiser generations, four years of fabrication, and 30,000km of some of the most demanding terrain in Australia. That is the Dirty 30 mk II in one sentence, and it earns every word of it.