zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Trucks
/
Toyota Doesn't Know What To Do With The Land Cruiser In The U.S.
Toyota Doesn't Know What To Do With The Land Cruiser In The U.S.-July 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:13:06

Toyota Land Cruiser

The is reportedly dead in the U.S. after the current generation has trucked through the last 12 years on sale, mostly unchanged. Letting go isn’t easy, though, and reports indicate Toyota is now trying to figure out what, exactly, a modern Land Cruiser should be for the model to make a future comeback.

The current-generation Land Cruiser was launched in 2008, but it’s been a fantastic truck during that time. The average new Land Cruiser owner , suggesting reliability and strong customer loyalty, and it like the in off-road tests. For its purpose on paper, there hasn’t been a lot of reason to dramatically change anything on the Land Cruiser in a while, except its lagging sales.

It was rumored back in October that the Land Cruiser would no longer be sold in the U.S. after the 2022 model year, and reported a dealer source confirmed it was dead after 2021 last month:

But now we’ve spoken with a partner in a large dealer franchise who confirmed that 2021 is the end of the trail for Toyota’s iconic SUV. But, thankfully, maybe not for long.

“It’s gone for 2022, but I think it’ll be back soon, and way more modern and luxurious,” he told us. The current Land Cruiser—the 200-series, in Cruiser parlance—dates to the 2008 model year and is (over)due for major improvements, especially on the fuel-economy front, where its 14 mpg EPA combined rating is doing Toyota’s fleet average no favors.

The source of the information is already teasing a comeback for the Land Cruiser as a more luxurious model with “modern” upgrades. If this is Toyota’s plan, which we don’t know if it actually is and won’t know for a while yet, it’s likely in response to the significant price of the current Land Cruiser. It starts at just , and by the time you buy one in 2021, the basic design will technically be on its fourth president.

Those new modern features on a future Cruiser likely include stuff the current truck doesn’t have, like decent fuel economy, probably some sort of integrated driver assistance systems beyond tacked-on cameras and maybe some advanced off-roading tech. If it does come back, I expect a much “softer” approach to the interior, too. I’d wager stuff like a digital gauge cluster, some bullshit replacement for the current hand shifter, nicer materials and likely some improvement in cargo volume.

For any improvement in fuel economy, we should expect those earlier offering to sadly come true, with a turbocharged V6 replacement and a future hybrid model supposedly being considered. Meanwhile, Jeep just introduced its V8 Wrangler with the Rubicon 392 model (), while Ford has confirmed the .

That would make it seem like there’s plenty of demand in the off-road market for Toyota to go any direction it likes with the next Land Cruiser, if they engineer it to last another decade and actually spend some time marketing it to people this time around.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Trucks
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
By definition, a big truck like a or struggles to be small. Even in its smallest, most trucky configuration — a two-door single cab — a full-size truck is relatively large and comes with a sizable bed for hauling cargo. But a small truck like the third-generation can do...
Jul 1, 2025
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
No square inch of the Northeast is safe from deer, as video out of New Jersey shows. A deer, tearing through the suburbs, managed to leap over a Pontiac Vibe and Honda CR-V before landing on the bedside of a 2007 Chevy Silverado — just as a prospective buyer arrived...
Jul 1, 2025
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
In addition to the all-electric , the truck brand announced this week that it will also release a engine gasoline-powered hybrid version of its electric pickup, called Ramcharger. The goal here is to use the V6 engine as a generator for the electric powertrain when the 92 kWh battery...
Jul 1, 2025
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
Those who saw the meteoric rise of through the 2010s and onward probably associate the badge with the . The was Chevy’s halo midsize truck when it was released in 2016, but the ZR2 badging goes all the way to the when Chevy made the S-10 ZR2. It’s gnarly....
Jul 1, 2025
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
gets dunked on for letting models like the languish for years. But, the truck saw a model update well before the release of the , which is mechanically much like an with a design. Outside of the U.S., the successor to the second-generation Frontier came in 2014 with the...
Jul 1, 2025
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
No car has ever driven at higher altitude than this 992-generation Porsche 911 Carrera 4S with portal axles. On Saturday the Porsche crew, led by racing driver Romain Dumas, reached the highest peak of the west ridge of the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile, . That’s the tallest...
Jul 1, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved