The 2020 Toyota Land Cruiser drips with nostalgia. Like using an outdated-fashioned basic safety razor, you actually have to want the knowledge and look for it out, nicks and all.
From the stocky looks to its cumbersome driving character, the Land Cruiser is like driving an SUV from a decade ago, which it is. Toyota last redesigned the Land Cruiser for 2008, and a new technology isn’t anticipated to go on sale in the United States until eventually 2022.
Rumors persist we’ll see the new design before long, which will launch in overseas markets very first. Until eventually then, we will have to be information with the Land Cruiser as it is. Instead than view this as a undesirable point, it is improved to enjoy the problem of driving some thing so able and with so substantially presence. Is the Land Cruiser dated? Guaranteed. But the very good far outweighs the undesirable.
I analyzed an $89,239-Heritage Version, which adds bronze-coloured 18-inch aluminum BBS wheels, script Land Cruiser badges and bronze interior trim. The head- and foglights have darkened surrounds, which aren’t actually noticeable, and the Yakima MegaWarrior roof carrier, which is extremely noticeable. It’s only obtainable in the five-seat configuration no 3rd row. You decide for the Heritage Version if you actually like this look, and it is only $2,330 more than the common design. Upon reflection, I’d almost certainly go for a Heritage design if acquiring a new Land Cruiser. The intelligent engage in, even so, is to get a single a few several years outdated and allow an individual else consider the depreciation strike, even though you maintain on to an SUV that has strong resale value.
The lumbering 5.seven-liter V8 underscores the outdated-university aesthetic. The scores are prodigious, 381 horsepower and 401 pound-ft of torque, but the Heritage Version weighs 5,715 pounds. It normally takes a moment to get heading, and the 8-speed automatic transmission is a methodical shifter. The brakes are touchy. You can find a great deal of pedal journey adopted by a great deal of halting electric power. The cliche of being on your toes applies. The suspension is expectedly bouncy, which is strengthened when you jam on the brakes. I didn’t do any off-roading, but the chassis tuning is amazing for comfortably floating more than pock-marked streets in metro Detroit. The steering is numb, giving minor interaction, but turning these meaty off-highway tires is even now a exercise session. If you want a improved each day driver, the Lexus LX 570 (identical underpinnings, unique styling, obtainable adaptive air suspension) is the way to go.
There is almost nothing overtly retro about the Land Cruiser’s style. The circular shapes of the headlights, the flares of the fenders, the contoured hood, the off-highway tires — they all build an id — nevertheless it is not out of line with looks of say, the Toyota Highlander. The Land Cruiser involves you to embrace the minor points, consider them jointly and reflect on the earlier. Then you see it. The style, the picture, the extremely notion of the Land Cruiser is why you get a practically $90,000-Toyota SUV. In addition to the driving character, the LX’s interior is a little bit nicer and you get a nicely-respected, if ubiquitous luxurious badge. On the other hand, assume of the Lexus SUVs. Which a single is the LX? Counter that with two terms: Land Cruiser.
The moniker has been synonymous with rugged capacity for practically 70 several years. Gross sales volume, not so substantially. Whilst 10 million Land Cruisers have been sold all over the environment more than its extended historical past and the SUV was an early common bearer for Toyota in the United States, the enterprise has sold just 614 of them this year via the very first quarter in America. The Heritage Version is confined, nevertheless you can spec a single out on Toyota’s web site, no issue, and it appears to be even now obtainable. Quantities really do not explain to the tale of the Land Cruiser. There is plenty of significant SUVs with off-highway chops that are more affordable, more richly appointed and/or improved to generate. You get the Land Cruiser since you look for it out, you want to feel some thing and almost nothing else will do. Sometime, there will be a improved Land Cruiser, but this last technology, flaws and all, will be remembered fondly. Nostalgia is in truth highly effective.
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