Rust Worx revives Malcolm Douglas' rusted Toyota Troopy for 4WD shows

A Troopy that outlived its owner

Malcolm Douglas made more than 50 outback documentaries on Australian television, starting with "Across the Top", and ran a crocodile park near Broome. He died in September 2010 in a car accident at his wilderness park, according to Wikipedia. His personal 4x4, a 2001 Toyota Land Cruiser Troop Carrier fitted with one of the first 1HD-FTE turbodiesel engines Toyota sold in Australia, stayed on in Broome after his death. For more than a decade it sat and rusted, Unsealed 4X4 reports.

Malcolm's grandson, Owen Douglas, described the state the family found it in. "I could have got a screwdriver and just about poked a hole in every part of this car," he told Unsealed 4X4.

Rust Worx strips it back to bare metal

In 2022 the Douglas family, working with the 4WD Adventure Show team, brought the Troopy to Rust Worx in Perth. The workshop's lead technician, Gary, and his crew pulled the roof off to repair it, replaced the drip rails, rebuilt the lower quarter panels, sills and floor pan, repaired the doors and sandblasted the shell before painting it. Unsealed 4X4 reports the primer preparation alone took around 100 hours.

Gary told the outlet the car held more damage than it looked. "Lots of unseen rust that we didn't know was there," he said. The original 1HD-FTE engine Malcolm bought the Troopy with was kept. One detail was deliberately left alone rather than fixed. A crocodile had bitten into a seat at some point in the Troopy's working life, and that bite mark now sits under a clear section of the new seat cover, visible rather than hidden.

For Indian overlanders who nurse an old Gypsy or a diesel Land Cruiser through its fourth decade, the Troopy's story is a familiar one. The car that does real work, from crocodile capture runs to documentary shoots, rusts faster than the one kept for Sunday drives. Restoring it to running order rather than museum condition, keeping the original engine and even the scars, is the same approach serious vintage 4x4 clubs in India already favour over a full cosmetic redo.

On the road again at Australian shows

The restored Troopy first went on public display at the Sydney 4WD & Adventure Show at Sydney Dragway, Eastern Creek, from September 11 to 13, 2026. It appeared next at the Perth 4WD & Adventure Show at McCallum Park from November 6 to 8, 2026, shown alongside other custom builds including Shed Life's K Truck and RAM 2500 and a LandCruiser belonging to a builder named TJ, Unsealed 4X4 reported. There is no word yet on whether the Troopy will travel to any of the publication's other state shows.

Sources

• Malcolm Douglas' iconic Troopy is back on the road
• Four rigs worth a closer look at the Perth 4WD Show
• What to see at the Perth 4WD & Adventure Show 2026
• Malcolm Douglas (documentary maker). Wikipedia