It doesn’t snow very often here in North Carolina, but when it does, you can count on the good people of this beautifully damp and verdant state to positively shit themselves in icy terror and absolutely forget how to drive, not just in ice and snow, but at all. This was the situation I found myself in – well, for about a day and a half – when I was handed the keys to a chunky new Toyota Land Cruiser, the base model they call the “1958” because it has a few – but appreciated – retro touches. So I got to drive this off-road beast in some fairly tricky slushy/snowy/icy conditions, but then, more importantly, I got to just use it as an absolute, borderline-abused workhorse.
You see, while I had this Land Cruiser as a press car, our Editor-in-Cheap David Tracy came down to visit and help me (help in the sense of doing most of the work) wrench on this 375,000-mile taxi project that we’ll be writing lots more about here quite soon. That project of cab-wrenching required an awful lot of driving around and hauling stuff. David and I used the Land Cruiser as our mobile headquarters as we drove all over the middle of North Carolina getting parts from junkyards and telling lies to tire shops and eating way too much gross fast food in there. We spent a lot of time in that Land Cruiser, and I think we got to know it pretty well, in what is perhaps the most realistic, least-glamorous way possible.
I didn’t take it off-roading, at least not in any serious way. I didn’t photograph it on majestic vistas, I didn’t take it on some incredible road trip across America where I wrestled with my demons until my demons and I decided fighting was useless, so we made love, dangerous, passionate demon-love, the kind that leaves scars and rashes for days later, but in the end you realize that perhaps the real destination were the friends you made along the way, or that’s when I was carrying you, or something like that. I didn’t do anything like that.
Instead, I used this thing as a box on wheels that I could haul crap around in, eat meals in, a shelter from the cold, and a way to transport myself and some other people from one location to another. You know. A car. Or truck or SUV or whatever you want to call it. A motor vehicle. And, in this role, the Land Cruiser did its job wonderfully. And I got it really filthy, as you can see above there, next to Bent David.
What It Is, My Man
The Toyota Land Cruiser is something of a legendary name in the off-roader/SUV world, renowned across the globe for its ruggedness and reliability and just plain ability. Back around 2021 or so, we thought the Land Cruiser was going to be gone, at least here in America, but last year Toyota gave us a nice surprise and introduced this new generation of Land Cruiser. And, unusually for pretty much any car, this generation is smaller, lighter, simpler, and cheaper than the previous generation, and I think each and every one of those adjectives is fantastic.
Even better, the particular Land Cruiser I got to test is the 1958 version, which is what Toyota is calling their base-model Land Cruiser. The higher-spec Land Cruiser is just called the Land Cruiser, because there are people who work at Toyota who get all kinds of sick pleasures from making things confusing and hard to Google, the sick bastards. Even though this is the base model, it’s still a machine that Toyota won’t give you unless you give them – or one of their authorized agents – 59,979 American dollars, at least in the case of my particular press vehicle. It starts at $58,150 and the higher trims go to about $63,000, which is a lot of money, because we live in stupid times.
Honestly, though, I really prefer the look of the 1958 model with its round headlamps and all-black bumpers and cloth interior, much more than the higher spec models. I mean, look at them – here’s the 1958 one:
…and here’s the higher-spec Land Cruiser one:
I mean, the cheap one looks like a pal who’s down for whatever, and the fancy one looks like it’s judging you with thinly-veiled contempt, and that’s the kind of shit I just don’t need from my SUV. Sure, it has ventilated front seats, some kind of overkill 10-speaker stereo system, a bigger 12.3-inch center screen, and wider all-terrain tires, but, let’s be honest, do you really need all that crap? I mean, who are you anyway, God’s dad’s boss’ life coach? I sure as hell know I’m not that. I’ve seen my search history, I know what I’m dealing with when it comes to me, and I can tell you for a fact I do not deserve ventilated seats or even a 5-speaker stereo system.
Let’s Talk More About The Look
Since we already started talking about the look of this thing, we may as well keep going. Toyota seems to have finally freed themselves from their overly-ornate cybaroque period of design, and are now re-embracing some simplicity. The Land Cruiser is pleasingly boxy, with satisfyingly chunky proportions, and just the right amount of surface detailing, mostly sticking to a diagonal-line-cutoff-corner sort of theme.
That undercut in the lower third of the doors I think is especially effective at reducing visual bulk, and I think the whole package feels purposeful and rugged without edging too far into look-what-a-tough-boy-I-am territory, the bane of so many modern SUVs.
Just to compare, take a look at the previous generation of Land Cruiser:
There’s just way too much shit going on here: too much chrome, too many vents and slats and strakes, the hood’s too high, everything is just too bulky, too ongepotchket, too much of everything. Taking everything down a few notches – size, weight, ornamentation, everything – is the best choice that Toyota could have made.
This feels much more like what a Land Cruiser should be: an unassuming but confident tool that gets jobs done.
My only real exterior design complaints are pretty minor, really. Like, this tow hitch cover is strangely bulky and silly; why not just let the hitch receptacle be exposed, without shame?
Oh well. This isn’t that big a deal, and I suppose it’s more forgiving if you back into someone’s car, and that’s something I can get behind.
I’m fond of the lighting design; not just the round headlights with their horseshoe-shaped DRLs, but also the additional DRL/Sidelights forming that = sign in the indicator unit. I think those add a nice bit of visual interest there. That fog/driving lamp is strangely tiny, though; I wouldn’t have minded seeing a larger round lens down there. Especially in yellow.
Oh, there is one thing I’d enjoy bitching about: the colors. Or, I should say, the lack of colors. The one I tested was “meteor shower,” which you probably know as “gray.” Just gray. If you don’t want the dazzling chromatic orgasm of Meteor Shower, you get to pick from, let’s see, black or white, just like the colors the first seasons of The Andy Griffith Show were broadcast in. This is embarrassing. If you want to spend more money and get the higher-spec one with the face that looks like it just caught you picking your nose, you can get a blue and a sort of gold-ish color, but that’s it, in addition to more boring-ass grays.
Why can’t you get one of these in a yellow, or vivid blue, or forest-service green or, hell, any color? This is stupid.
What’s On The Inside?
You know what the big thing about the interior of the Land Cruiser 1958 is? Cloth. And lots of it! You may have forgotten about just nice cloth, because it’s become pretty rare on modern cars, which are all suckling greedily at the teats of Big Leather or Big Vinyl, also known as Big Vegan Leather. The cloth inside the Land Cruiser is decidedly retro, feeling a bit like a church basement rec-room sofa, but also feeling undeniably comfortable and friendly and warm.
Like all of the best parts of this car, the interior feels unpretentious and welcoming, and I like that an awful lot in a car. Is there lots of plastic around in the door trim and on the dash and everywhere else? You bet your ass there is. And that’s, honestly, just fine! Well, maybe not just fine, since this thing does clock in at almost $60 grand, but still, I have no problems with honest plastics.
Some of the dashboard plastics are pleasingly squishy, and some feel more like the finest products that Fisher-Price has produced. But nothing feels actually flimsy, just plasticky, and, again, I’m fine with that. I’m not some pampered sultan that must needs only touch the finest mother-of-pearl and bat silk upholstery – plastics get the job done, and they’re more than welcome on my dashboard.
Despite being a body-on-frame vehicle that also needs to store a whole big hybrid battery, the interior is quite roomy. That big, flat battery forms the floor of the cargo area, which is extremely roomy. Voluminous, even, and nicely flat-floored and box-like.
The battery does add a few inches of lift-over when you’re shoving things back there, but it’s an understandable trade-off.
At the forward edge of the cargo area, there is a little compartment to hold the toolkit and a small compartment, perfect for hiding your ultra-valuable sandwiches or perhaps an heirloom chalkboard eraser.
The rear seats fold in a split 60/40 way, and they kind of Pac-Man themselves closed and can then be rotated forward, getting them at least somewhat out of the way and freeing up a good bit more cargo area.
We loaded the Land Cruiser up with all sorts of crap as we were working on the taxi, and even a full set of tires was no problem, even without any real planning. I should also note that the process of buying new tires for the taxi was somewhat embarrassing, because I got caught in a lie.
You see, the tires we wanted didn’t show up as being rated for our taxi-spec Nissan NV200, even though they would be just fine. So after they refused to sell the tires to David, I went up and said David made an error, we want these for a Nissan Sentra! He ha, that David, always mixing up his Sentras and vans. What a kook!
This ruse went okay for a while until it was revealed that Sentra wheels had a different bolt pattern, and so I was caught in an outright lie. My usual tactic when caught lying, flinging a smoke bomb to the ground and making a run for it, was stymied by a door that, it turns out, opens inward, not outward, landing me on the floor with a bloody nose when the smoke cleared. In the end, we did manage to talk them into selling us the tires, but first I had to apologize for my subterfuge, which was humbling.
Anyway, the interior is great on the Land Cruiser 1958 – roomy, hard-wearing, and comfortable. You don’t need the fancier spec, trust me.
How’s It Drive?
I know a lot of purists did some underpants-bunching when it was revealed that this Land Cruiser has not a V8, but instead a 2.4-liter four-banger engine, paired with two electric motors to make up Toyota’s i-FORCE MAX Hybrid system, which is a name you say in a dumb, gruff voice. The whole shebang makes 326 horsepower and 426 pound-feet of torque. It’ll get from a stop to 60 mph in about 7.7 seconds, which is, let’s be honest here, just fine.
A manual transmission sure would have been more fun, but you’re stuck with an 8-speed automatic that’s um, unobtrusive, I suppose.
If you like fat hoses and wires, all ribbed for someone’s pleasure, then you’ll love looking in the engine compartment, which is absolutely full of them.
The girthy orange wires are for the hybrid system, which does an admirable job of keeping the fuel economy decent on this nearly 5,500-pound vehicle, with the official numbers coming in at 22 city, 25 highway, and 23 mpg combined. My real-world driving found these numbers to be pretty accurate; I got in the low-to-mid 20s throughout my time with the Land Cruiser.
Electric-only driving is possible, but I only had it happen while creeping through a parking lot or when slowly riding in my neighborhood. It’s quiet and novel, but it doesn’t really last long.
Handling isn’t too bad for a tall, heavy, boxy machine like this; the smaller size definitely helps, compared to the outgoing model. It’s fairly easy and undemanding to drive, with good acceleration, strong brakes, and quite good visibility.
The only time I really got to put the full-time 4×4 system to the test were during the day-and-a-half of snow and ice and slush, and the 1958 proved quite stable and capable, even at highway speeds on a slick road, and on un-plowed back roads, where I was able to test out the 4-Low setting to get up some steeper, snowy hills. And all this on all-season tires! I’m sure in the right hands and right conditions, this would prove to be a very competent off-road machine.
Those were not my hands, though, at least not this time, as my hands were too tired and greasy and clutching the occasional taco.
What About All The Tech And UX Stuff?
One of the things I like best about Toyota’s on-screen UX is that I could just about ignore it completely. The Land Cruiser supports CarPlay and Android Auto, and wisely leaves most of the essential controls off the screen, so you barely need to interact with Toyota’s UX, which I think was showing some ad trying to get me to sign up for their nav system subscription or something like that. How about no, fuck off, ad-on-the-screen? How about that instead?
Happily, there are physical buttons for most controls, and I generally like these piano-key type buttons, especially when they move both up and down to, say, raise and lower temperature. The problem is that some of these don’t do that, and it’s a little jarring. This shape wants to move up and down, and I think the buttons that don’t do that should have another form. Also, the buttons above the piano-type keys read like labels for the keys more than buttons themselves, which is confusing.
Still, I’m happy to have all of these physical controls. And plenty of USB-C ports is nice, too, and good HVAC vents that you can operate with gloves on, and also I’m pleased with the separate HVAC controls in the rear, along with a 2400W/120V wall-type outlet, which is also duplicated in the rear cargo area for your shoe buffer and rock tumbler needs.
One unexpected tech-related thing has to do with the LCD instrument cluster, which is generally pretty conventional:
What makes this instrument cluster odd is that the angle of viewing is quite narrow, for a modern LCD display. You really can’t see anything on it unless you’re head-on, so the passenger only sees this when they peek over:
Now, I suspect for a lot of drivers, this may be considered a plus. People can’t complain about you speeding if they have no idea you’re speeding!
Of course, the Land Cruiser has dynamic cruise and lane keeping and road sign recognition and all of the sort-of Level 2 driver-assist stuff that’s part of Toyota Safety Sense 3.0, which you can read about here, because, I’ll be honest – I didn’t pay any of that stuff all that much attention. I mean, I noticed it had automatically dimming headlights and I could feel the lane assist trying to tell me what to do and beeping at me, but for things like the Proactive Driving Assist? I didn’t care enough to mess with it. I was too busy driving manually, like a filthy animal.
What’s The Punctum Of The Toyota Land Cruiser 1958?
So here we are, at the real question: What’s the punctum of this car? What’s its point? Why should you care?
I think the punctum of the Land Cruiser, especially in this 1958 version, is the return to simplicity (in most ways, though maybe not in the powertrain). This is a very capable box on wheels, and that’s all it ever needed to be. The brand of retro styling Toyota is employing here is quite minimal and subtle, but it’s appreciated, and it just adds to the straightforward character of the Land Cruiser. The cloth interior is notable for its basic, honest appeal, and the car has the overall sense of an entity that’s your partner, there to help, without asking too much.
That’s how I used and treated this thing for the over-a-week I had it. I demanded it do things I needed, and it did them. It did them with ease and comfort and confidence, and more than a little bit of style. David and I spent a lot of time in this thing, driving, loading, eating, taking meetings and calls, and for the most part it disappeared into its own utility, the way any good tool does, like a nice pair of shears or an X-acto knife or a hammer of just the right size and heft.
I really can’t think of any higher praise than that. Wish it were cheaper, though.
I don’t mind cloth seats if it’s quality cloth – our Mazdas my family had in the 80 and 90s had seriously nice and hard-wearing cloth. In fact, I’ll take such cloth over non-ventilated leather seats any day.
Is this 4-cylinder hybrid more reliable than the maligned V6 twin turbo that’s used in the GX550?
Does the hood flutter at highway speeds? I’ve heard this complaint a lot.
They really do need to offer some other colors on the 1958 edition, though the gray with black badging and trim is giving me some serious 90s JDM Land Cruiser vibes. But my wife wants dark green and only the GX550 has that.
What you really describe is a 70 series, not this. Toyota sells them in Aus for ~$50K. Stick, diesel.
https://www.toyota.com.au/landcruiser-70
Shame we can’t get them here
Jason was in fine form when he wrote this piece. I spat out my mouth guard when I read the bit about the heirloom chalk eraser.
I like the look of this. The dash and the snout based on the pics have too many shapes and textures that spoil the rest of the package for me. I’ll have to check out the thing on the flesh to b sure.
I haven’t read Jason’s review yet (though I know that I’ll enjoy it of course) but I just had to chime in to say that ‘affable workhorse’ is just about the nicest possible thing that could be said about any vehicle intended to have actual utility.
Added later: OK, I’ve read it and laughed and cried and plotzed too. I’ve already had two beers though, and it’s kind of cold here (for LA), and I’m strongly inclined to get into bed w/the dog and zone out watching videos about Citroens on Youtube (don’t judge me: you’ll be nearing 60 and single someday too if you’re not a lucky bastard!) so I’ll save my feedback on this review for tomorrow, when I can give it the attention and focus that it so richly deserves. 🙂
I really enjoyed the review as mentioned and hardly a surprise. The vehicle is interesting, and practical, and probably reliable despite the underhood complexity… and I MUCH PREFER the round headlights and cloth seats on the base ‘1958’ model to the squinty faces on the upper trims. However, as I mentioned elsewhere, $60K for the base is just TOO EXPENSIVE. I know everything everywhere all the time is expensive now… especially new cars. But really, this is too much. I watched a Youtube review (by a couple of cute, semi-giddy middle-aged ladies… I forget the channel) of a new Mazda CX-90 with an inline six-cylinder engine (but without Mazda’s home-built hybrid stuff, which I gather has some teething pains) in Premium Plus trim (which seemed to have every possible doodad you could think of/want) and it was LESS THAN $60K. I mean, this thing has three rows of seats and the third row could actually be livable to a couple of adult ladies. And there was actual suede on the dash, seat inserts, and door cards! Ignoring the fact that suede looks and feels nice but will get dirty and is hard to clean… it’s still fancy. And again: this thing cost less than the new Land Cruiser in its most basic/decontented form. I don’t even WANT a CX-90 (I’d rather buy a used CX-9 and put the other $30K in the bank, but that’s just me) but Toyota charging so much for this practically PUSHES me through the front door of my nearest Mazda showroom. If Mazda can manage to eek out a profit on such a fancy CX-90, Toyota’s just being greedy with a $60K base price on the Land Cruiser. Toyota dwarfs Mazda… thus, Toyota’s gotta be paying less (per pound of steel, per subcontracted component) than Mazda does… yet Toyota wants buyers to think $60K for four cylinders and cloth seats is fine? Like: WTF?
I know the CX-90 and Land Cruiser 1958 are aiming for different sets of customers, but there is some overlap and both brands score pretty high so they might be cross-shopped. If the 1958 came in a usable non-hybrid version so that lump in the cargo area wasn’t there (or if they managed to find a better place to hide the battery pack) and they put in some back seats that folded properly (like the ‘magic seat’ in the back of the first-gen Honda Fit, or even like the Stow ‘n Go hiding seats in some Chrysler minivan products) AND they managed to sell it (in base form) for $45K AND they could supply enough fast enough to keep dealers from adding dealer markups… well, if they could do all that, they’d have an insane hit on their hands. But they won’t… over the past several years, Toyotas in general seem to be staking out the upper ranges of what they think the market will bear in terms of MSRPs in various segments. And (of course) it’s difficult to find base/non-optioned versions of ANY car anyway, let alone newer, in-demand models.
The 1958 ought to start at about $45K. I mean it. The base/regular Prius ought to be actually buyable at under $25K, as ought to be the starting price for a base/cloth Camry. That’s JMHO and meaningless to Toyota of course, and I know the days of seeing base 4-cylinder Camrys being advertised for $17,995. at some bigger SoCal dealers are done, but let’s be honest, those days weren’t that long ago!
Color me irked at reality, and not for the first or last time today I suspect.
Yeah, my wife is looking at CX-90s and GX550s and the price delta is a LOT, and the GX550 isn’t quite as nice inside as most Lexus vehicles. If they even got this down to $50k we’d consider it.
My wife biggest complaint is that you can only get tan or white seats on the top-of-the-line CX-90, and I won’t deal with non-ventilated leather seats. I personally like the tan, but she prefers black or dark gray interiors, and it’s bizarre that black is not an option on the highest trim level.
I swear I’m not a shill for Mazda. I mean… I own a Miata (my second) but the company has never given me so much as one thin dime. I’m just consistently impressed that pretty much everything in their lineup (mostly crossovers of course, along with one small sedan/hatch and one actual sportscar) really holds its own vs. competitors from other brands… sometimes costing a fair bit more than the Mazda option does.
Plus, some folks really dig that Soul/Crystal Red metallic paint, some dig their much-nicer-than-any-other-Japanese-competitor’s interiors, and some dig the fact that they’ve usually got surprisingly decent steering/road feel (even the crossovers).
But I understand where you’re coming from… a friend of mine hates dark interiors and wound up with a cream-colored one in his new BMW 5-series… it looks pretty, but I’d never want one that light colored in a car I wasn’t going to give back and the end of the lease. And as mentioned earlier, as nice as it looks and feels, I’d never want actual suede anywhere it was going to get touched over time and dirty. Heck, I love houndstooth cloth seat inserts pretty much every time I see them in any car old or new, but realistically, the light parts (almost always white, vs. black) are going to really show dirt easily.
Yeah, I’m 99% certain we’ll get the CX-90, and hopefully by the time all this tariff nonsense resolves, they’ll offer it in black with ventilated seats. But she will settle for the tan one if need be.
We both are VERY on board with Soul Red. I was considering a new Miata Club in that color, but found an extremely nice 54,000 mile 2008 40th Anniversary Edition RX-8 for $11k. I could MAYBE have spent less – I bought it on BaT, but they’re not exactly common to find in good shape.
Am I on something, or does one of you have over 500 missed calls??
It’s nice. Pricey but nice.
Cloth seats, buttons, low tech – yeah, this seems like a nice decent low-end workhorse type vehicl-SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS?
Your point is well taken. I like it, even w/its flaws, but at $60K? Eff. No.
Were this exact vehicle, warts and all, be MSRPing and actually buyable at the Toyota dealer nearest to me on Hollywood Blvd. at the price of say… $43,500. then I, a guy who absolutely doesn’t need a new car at all, would probably cash out some CDs and go get one.
If they offered it in a few non-metallic actual colors… say, a relaxingly pastel mint green, or a Robin’s Egg blue like on the recently teased third-gen Nissan Leaf, or perhaps even that odd metallic mustard yellow that’s so strangely appealing on the new Prius, well then I’d totally forgive the raised floor in the cargo area and the stupidly folding rear seats entirely.
Hey Torch, great use of punctum. I’ve used that word about two times in my life, but for some reason knew the meaning. Maybe because my daughter scored a 5 on the Latin AP test a couple years ago.
The 58 is a really nice vehicle. I’m going to say it’s expensive, but not terrible. As a surfer though, would like the low spec with heated leather seats.
The new Prado has been flamed here in Upsidedownland.
We only get the carry-over 2.8 Deisel, but because the battery eats into the back so much, check out what they have done for the 7-seater:https://media.drive.com.au/obj/tx_q:70,rs:auto:1600:900:1/driveau/upload/cms/uploads/cc6fbe09-3e7c-5a12-a31f-7c0121850000
Water ingress and less-than-favourable social media posts too.
I think this version would have gone down a lot better in Oz.
I want to like it, but I come up short of wanting one.
That interior needs a little more color contrast to not be so gloomy, but I like the cloth. The lack of color choices feels like punishment for “only” spending $60,000. Fuck that.
Even knowing I’ll never work on one, the view under the hood made me feel anxious, and I’m not a fan of the packaging tradeoffs that were made to accommodate the hybrid powertrain. Wouldn’t that little step in the back be invisible and a non issue to get over if the bumper itself was higher/taller? There was a 4Runner in the family with rear seats that folded up like that. I never liked them, but that might not have to do with packaging the hybrid system since Toyota was already using that style. Still sucks, though.
Overall, the whole thing mostly makes me wonder how much cheaper it would be and how much efficiency would really be lost if it just had the turbo 4 from the Tacoma as a base engine.
“Snakes! Why’d it have to be snakes?”
This thing looks great, but good grief that engine bay seems like a total nightmare to work on.
No engine covers to fool you into thinking its a simple old donk.
That thing seems pretty cool, but apparently I’m a poor where new cars are concerned. Sigh.
Those fold down rear seats are unacceptable. My 2013 crv has the bottom part fold out against the front seats and then the back rest folds flat. Any other variation is a literal waste of space. Do better Toyota, or charge less.
That’s the neat part, they don’t have to do either and they’ll still sell.
I like my Toyota’s but damn, some things are unacceptable or just lazy engineering. Vote with your wallet people
This is the exact reason I won’t get the LC250 or 6th gen 4Runner. My 2 row 5th Gen 4runner allows a completely flat “bed” behind me for 2 large dogs and lots of luggage.
I get it, I mean for the price I can get a spec’d out FX4 ranger (with actual colours) and a rear locking diff. And it’s not like Toyota is backing up their product any more than Ford, they both have the same warranties as vehicles from the 90s. It’s just not a competitive vehicle.
The Toyota driver assist system is horrible to live with,it beeps and jerks at the wheel all the damn time,it’s like driving with your grandma. It also bugs me that the sign recognition and lane steering thing defaults to on again every time you start the car even if I fucking turned it off a few minutes ago. Nice car though,but way too much plastic for a 60 grand car.
I think Toyota should have made Land Cruiser its own brand of rugged off-road vehicles. Similar to how Lexus is the luxury arm of Toyota.
Bring the J300 and 70 Series to the US as part of this lineup. Create a mini off-road capable ute. Add a truck to the lineup. This way the J250 (aka US Land Cruiser) would make more sense since it would be part of another brand rather than in the same lineup as the 4Runner.
That worked great for Jeep and the wagoneer.
Since we’re talking about the practical use of the LC250 as a heavy duty station wagon, which is essentially what it is, let’s see, larger, more expensive, and less cargo room than the outgoing 5th gen 4runner. Hmmm. Nope. Those idiotic tumble forward rear seats are a complete waste of time.
Interesting you chose to compare the style to a J300 LC which we never got here. In any case, I prefer the J200’s relatively conservative styling to both the J300 and the current J250 LC. I think the GX is the better looking J250. The 300 based LX should be killed with fire.
I am taking the opposite take. If I am shelling out nearly $60k for a vehicle, it better come equipped with equipment that comes with the $63k price tag. Toyota knows most folks will be willing to shell out a little more to get the things that have more or less become standard on vehicles that are 1/2 the cost.
I sat in the $63k one at a dealer last weekend along with the GX at the Lexus dealer down the road. The GX feels like a step up but that jumps $10k or more and you are saddled with an engine that doesn’t make much more power and is way thirstier. That is what really makes the $63k worth it. It adds the creature comforts one expects and wants these days but at a discount compared to the fancier Lexus.
The fact that 1958 models are readily available at the dealer and regular Land Crusiers are in higher demand and not available tells you the rest of the market thinks the base model is not the one to buy.
Yeah, that’s the thing about modern base models. They’re still flipping expensive, and in the long run you’re usually better off buying the trim level you want than being miserable every time you get in the car on a cold day because you skimped on the heated seats and steering wheel. I find I’m much less likely to turn around and start shopping for my next vehicle six months later if the one I bought in the first place is making me happy.
No ventilated seats and those awful rectangular headlights make the higher trim LC a no-go for us.
I like the new Land Cruiser, but I don’t love the new Land Cruiser. I think the styling is great (the circle vs rectangle headlights is a fun nod to the 90 series Prados). I appreciate that they offer it with some offroad goodies.
Here’s the rub: I don’t think Toyota knows what they should do with it.
The 6th gen 4runner has enough trims to be everything to everybody. It has a relatively affordable base model (with optional 3rd row!), the mid spec trims which can go either sporty or rugged, the Overtrail for the overlanders, and the TRD pro for the desert racers.
The LC? 2 trims only. One basic as heck and one fancy. That’s it. One powertrain too. Seems like they positioned it poorly to not compete directly with any of the other Toyotas, while competing poorly with all of the other Toyotas. They kneecapped the trims to not compete with the 4runner, they kept the small engine to not compete with the GX, they kept the 3rd row out to not compete with the Sequoia. And then, they have the audacity to price it in the mid-60’s for the cloth base model with open diffs?!
I wish Toyota would do SOMETHING with this platform. They could make the ultimate Toyota and won’t. Give me the Land Cruiser Trim, with the 1958 headlights, with the TTV6 (non Hybrid) from the GX, with the Old Man Emu Suspension from the Overtrail 4runner, 3rd row seat, and the triple lockers from the LX. Please and thank you.
Still, I think history will look kindly on these LC’s…in the used market. See FJ Cruiser for comparison.
My next door neighbors have a loaded, fancy one that they bought late last year. It is nice, very nice even, but I am with Torch that the lower spec one is probably what I would want. Unfortunately, even the cheapest one is way beyond my budget.
Great perspective Jason. I think you did a good job capturing the vibe on this. While I agree that it would be nice if things generally were cheaper, I think a lot of that has to do with a market that got expensive faster than the pace we’re use to and we are all struggling to catch up.
For the money you get an awful lot of car. Not in tech or “luxury”…in the modern context…but in terms of expensive hardware. The hybrid drivetrain is all expensive stuff – really high thermal efficiency ICE engine, coupled to an expensive feature rich transmission and hybrid system, coupled with the expensive full time 4wd transfer case with Torsen center – etc.
People don’t really get Land Cruiser until they have to work on them and realize how thoughtful the engineering is and how expensive all the hardware must have been. Its old luxury, like a Mercedes W124.
How many people would pay 60k for a modern W124?
I’ll take your word for it on the engineering, but at least the interior materials of the W124 made up for the austere style. I don’t mind the plastic and the cloth, but I don’t want to pay leather and wood prices for them.
Jason could you try to get a base model GX to review? I’m curious how it compares.
The Mies van der Rohe of Land Cruisers. It would be nice if a “Less is more” vibe were to spread through the auto industry.