Road Test of the Year: Toyota Land Cruiser
The big, off-road-ready Land Cruiser certainly dominates the road, but what else does it bring?
When the original, old-school Land Rover Defender shuffled off into the sunset 10 years ago, its departure caused quite a stir here in the UK. Off-roading enthusiasts wept in the streets. Dozens scrambled to buy the last models off the line, like panicked shoppers fighting over loaves of bread before a hurricane set in.
One particular fan, Sir Jim Ratcliffe of chemical company Ineos, was so distraught that he took the only possible course of action: spend half a billion on an old Smart car factory to start building his own.
Meanwhile, in a boardroom somewhere in Japan, Toyota’s executive team must’ve been sipping their green tea in quiet bemusement. They already had a Defender replacement. In fact, they’d been selling it for the last 60 years.
Whether it’s in Australia, the Middle East or South America, the Land Cruiser has a legendary reputation for crossing deserts, climbing mountains or fording rivers – without so much as breaking a sweat. Somehow, Britain never quite got that memo – until now, that is.
What’s changed? Well, it’s all in the styling isn’t it. The last 30 years’ worth of Land Cruisers seem to have been designed to be almost deliberately bland: a complete antidote to what showy rivals like Land Rover and Mercedes would do. But now, Toyota has decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – and thank God for that.
You have to admit, they’ve done rather a good job as well. The Land Cruiser may not be the only 4×4 on sale that’s shaped like a Lego brick, but somehow it avoids looking like a Defender, or a G-Class, or a Grenadier: it’s very much its own thing. It’s slathered in rough-and-tumble, Tonka-like detailing – but it doesn’t look like a complete workhorse either. But make no mistake, even from 30ft away it’s clear the Land Cruiser means business.
It’s a similar story inside. Climb – quite literally – aboard the surprisingly high-riding cabin, and you won’t find acres of mood lighting, cream leather or maple wood inlays. What you will see is buttons: and lots of them. Buttons for rock crawl modes, for locking the differentials, and for disconnecting the rear anti-roll bar to help with crawling over difficult terrain.
There’s even a switch to increase the engine’s idle speed. Why? Because Land Cruiser owners are the sort of people that might fit a winch – and to power one of those, you typically need to run the engine at higher revs.
This is also one of the only new SUVs that still sits on a ladder frame chassis, largely because it’s what Toyota’s customers demand. It’s fair to say then, that the Land Cruiser hasn’t exactly turned itself into a Chelsea Tractor.
Nowhere is that more apparent than behind the wheel. Toyota might have lavished the spec sheet with all sorts of posh equipment – heated and cooled seats front and rear, a premium (ish) speaker system, and more – but there’s no getting away from the rugged underpinnings. The Land Cruiser drives like a 4×4 from 30 years ago: wobbly, shuddery and strangely disconnected from the road.
Thing is though, I’m glad it feels that way. In a world where SUVs are effectively just tall versions or normal cars, the Land Cruiser somehow doesn’t feel anachronistic: it just feels fit for purpose.
Even its grumbly, old fashioned four-cylinder diesel engine has its charms. Toyota could have, like everyone else, shoved in a smooth V6, or a plug-in hybrid option. But it hasn’t: it’s stuck to its guns, because it knows this proven 2.8-litre lump can tow pretty much anything, and not let you down in the wilderness.
It helps that this particular Land Cruiser has arrived a time where rugged, outdoors-y stuff is in vogue – and also, quite literally, is in ‘Vogue’. High streets are now littered with people wearing brands like Berghaus, Rab and Columbia – the sort of clothes that, only ten years ago, would’ve been about as fashionable as Theresa May on a walking holiday. That’s sort of where the Land Cruiser finds itself: accidentally fashionable. If ever there was a car that represented ‘Gorpcore’, this is probably it.
Sadly for us, this has all happened at exactly the wrong moment. The Land Cruiser’s defiantly old-fashioned powertrain and underpinnings don’t fit into a world where emissions targets grow tighter and tighter – and so, Toyota can only bring a handful into the country at a time.
This particular Land Cruiser may very well be a swan song for proper, old-school 4x4s without the chintz. It’s hard to imagine how Toyota will continue to bring it to the UK in coming years, and that’s extremely sad, because I can’t think of another off-roader like it.
The Defender, now reincarnated, has become a thoroughly modern, school-run SUV. The Mercedes G-Class is simply a people carrier for the Kardashians. And the Ineos Grenadier? Well that’s the pastiche that nobody wanted: an inauthentic copy of an outdated off-roader, compromised in all the wrong ways.
