Behind the Wheel: the 2020 Toyota Land Cruiser

MotorTrend

It may not have the flash of the new Supra

Transcript

00:00 Hi there, I am standing next to one of my favorite machines on planet Earth, the Toyota Land Cruiser.

00:06 The thing's a legend. Why? Well, it offers a combination of

00:10 capability, reliability, and luxury that is found in virtually no other vehicle.

00:15 But it's also something of an anachronism because it's a Toyota. These are the Prius people, yet for whatever reason

00:23 they're still building a 6,000 pound

00:25 three-row body-owned frame SUV with a solid axle and a fridge.

00:29 Why? Come on, come take a ride with me. Let's find out.

00:34 I think the most amazing thing about it is Toyota hasn't spent a marketing dollar on this car in

00:48 decades. It just sells by word of mouth. The crazy part is

00:54 it's largely hand-built in Japan. Maybe hand-assembled is a better way to put it.

00:59 Why do they still make it? Back in 1957 when Toyota came to the US, they had two products.

01:05 They had the Toyopet, which is a small sedan, and they had the

01:10 FJ40 Land Cruiser. To put it politely, the Toyopet did not resonate with American consumers,

01:18 whereas the

01:20 FJ40 sure as hell did, and it has been in continuous production and on sale

01:26 continuously since then. It means something to them as a company.

01:31 You know, they're just not gonna stop selling it. This one I'm driving costs $88,000. The base price is

01:38 $86,000 and the car has one option and that's the rear seat entertainment. But yeah, there's no other options.

01:46 Everything's included. And so yeah, I have nice leather seats that are air-conditioned.

01:51 And as I mentioned, there's a refrigerator which can fit bottles this big.

01:56 But that's not what makes it so legendary. What makes it so legendary is the capability.

02:02 When you're in dirt,

02:05 what you do is you push this button and if you're making a right-hand turn, it locks the inside

02:11 rear tire up with the brake so it doesn't spin and the car just kind of pivots on that tire and

02:18 it effectively virtually shortens the wheelbase.

02:20 This is a three-row vehicle that has as much off-road capability as, you know, almost literally any

02:27 production vehicle on earth. The other part though is like the reliability.

02:32 All Toyota products go through one round of this durability testing, durability engineering, right? Their trucks,

02:38 they go through a second round of like off-road durability testing and

02:43 things like this, they go through the third round of development testing which,

02:50 my understanding, it's the equivalent of like going camping in a war zone.

02:55 They beat these things to death and they're just bulletproof and people love them. They're forever vehicles, you know,

03:02 just something you buy and like why would you replace it? What are you gonna replace it with?

03:07 Nothing.

03:08 So to wrap it all up, look,

03:10 Land Cruiser, it's a cult vehicle. There are 3,000 Americans a year who understand that concept.

03:18 They get stealth wealth. They understand that badges don't matter,

03:22 products matter, and the Land Cruiser is about as good as

03:28 vehicles get.

03:30 This is a real SUV. May they continue making it forever.

03:35 [Music]

03:38 [Music]

03:40 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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