Next Land Cruiser has Mars potential
4 December 2002: A select group of Irish motoring journalists drove part of the Paris-Dakar rally route yesterday, trying out Toyota’s next Land Cruiser. And in a real test on a mixture of motorway and offroad south-west of Granada in Spain, it proved to be a very impressive machine indeed.
Of course, the motorway wasn’t part of the rally course, but it was important that we got a taste of how this latest in a line of Toyota 4x4s that began 51 years ago behaves as the equivalent of a luxury saloon, just as much as it does what a real 4x4 SUV should do.
And it has, on first try, the potential to beat Range Rover at its own name, and its own pedigree at its own game.
Not coming to Ireland until sometime next year, the new Land Cruiser brings the latest in electronic technology to make it the most heavy-welly-proof offroader in the world.
Its Downhill Assist Control is an innovation that means the operator doesn’t have to rely either either on downhill braking or engine braking on steep and slippy grades.
There’s also a Hill-start Assist Control which deals both with wheelspin when trying to start uphill on a grade and also the problem of a vehicle slipping backwards while travelling upwards. This is a world first.
When it comes to Ireland, the main engine will be the 3-litre D-4D turbodiesel engine which powered our test vehicles yesterday (and will later today on a special assault course to prove the extremes at which the latest Land Cruiser will operate), but a 4-litre 249hp V6 petrol will also be available.
The diesel was so smooth, particularly for a 4-cylinder, that we wondered a couple of times if we’d misread the badging and were driving the petrol unit.
This is a taster. There are no prices or final specifications for Ireland yet. We’ll have more this week on IrishCar.com, and Trish will be giving a full review in the upcoming issue of Irish Car magazine’s buyers guide 2003 edition while Brian will be doing his own review in the shortly-afterwards Irish 4x4.
But part of what we drove yesterday was Mars landscape in quality. Which suggests that a version of the Land Cruiser might well carry the first humans across that planet.
Now there’s an idea for a TV ad. Maybe we should have patented it.
