The only one in the list that I think deserves a place is the Icon. Not for me, but I think it's hard to discount the cache that Jonathan and Icon brought to the cruiser world (both good and bad parts to that).I'd be curious which restomods you don't like in the museum. At current there are only ~5 I can think of?
Frakenstein FJ45 - Ironically a 'fan favorite' for many visitors
Icon FJ44 - It's strategically parked near the door so it can come and go
Proffits built Cummins 79 Series
76/80 Hybrid - A good conversation point about how to have a 'legal' late model 7x Series in the US
The Lizard King which is for sale, help us solve that problem
There was also a Central American 70/80 build as I recall last time I was there.
The other 95% (literally) are either stock survivors, stock or near stock restorations or builds that are very colloquially/culturally significant to their markets or have done something amazing (E7 fleet, fire trucks, military, ambulance). For example one could call our HJ75 a resto-mod? but it's also a very very typical build out for an Australian outback Land Cruiser so that patina and style absolutely makes sense to me in a museum format.
The HJ75 is absolutely the kind of thing that should be there.
I extensively volunteer and work with railroad preservation, so I have some opinions about preservation, especially operational preservation. The "in service" history is every bit as interesting and important as the "as built" stuff. But for my museum tastes, I'm always less interested in fancy toys (Like muscle cars--every car museum has a crap ton of 68 Camaros and shit, and virtually none have trucks that put food on people plates, or just did what they were designed to do day in and day out for a long time. That's by far my favorite part of the LCHM. The FQ15, the HJ47RP, GRJ150W, and the fire trucks are the ones that really interest me. If the museum had unlimited space, then a "restomod" wing would be interesting in it's own right, but I know space is tight and if there's one thing I would remove to make more room would be those. Just my opinion.
This is a great point. My general complaint about auto museums goes back a long time. To the point that I must have convinced my Dad to donate his VERY original '53 Power Wagon to the state's auto museum because it worked for the University its entire life. I don't have any trucks to donate, but I'm wondering about parts/components to show the evolution of things like steering knuckles, brakes, etc... That's fascinating stuff, and I can't be the only one who would think so.Have something we are missing on display? Please consider donating it. We are a non-profit 501c3 working to preserve the heritage of the Land Cruiser and continue to be an education center for new and old enthusiasts alike.
EDIT--the biggest missing pieces in my mind are the conflict trucks. Not sure how to get a 45 or 75 that has had a cannon hacked onto the back of it into the states, even for a museum though. Unless somebody can get the state department involved to facilitate the process...
Dan