Displaying Items By Tag: Confirms

Toyota confirmed a rumor we first caught wind of earlier in 2020 by announcing that the current-generation Land Cruiser will retire after the 2021 model year. The next-generation model will be introduced in the coming months, but we're receiving mixed signals about whether the nameplate will return to the United States.

Launched in 2007 as a 2008 model, and updated twice since, the J200-generation Land Cruiser (pictured) is about to enter its 14th year on the market. It's a senior citizen by industry standards, so its demise isn't surprising, 2 million units that year.

Toyota is planning a significant expansion of its range of GR-branded models and this could even include a sporty version of the next-generation Land Cruiser 300 Series.

Act fast if you want to explore the outdoors in a new Toyota Land Cruiser. It seems 2021 will be the current-generation SUV's last model year on the American market, according to a recent report, and it's not coming back.

An anonymous dealer source confirmed the off-roader's demise to Motor Authority. "Unfortunately it's gone, which I'm pretty bummed about. It's a punch to the gut for all of us enthusiasts who love the product. There's no illusion it's coming back, and it's completely dead for the moment, " the incognito employee told the publication.

In early 2019, Toyota joined forces with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to develop a six-wheeled rover capable of transporting two astronauts and their gear on the moon. Development work is ongoing, the process is expected to take nearly a decade, but the partners have already agreed on a name.

It's an off-roader, albeit not one Toyota is used to developing, so it earned the name Lunar Cruiser. The Japanese firm explained it chose that name because the vehicle's basic mission is the same as the original Land Cruiser's: to bring its passengers home alive. FJ Cruiser-like trim on the front end creates another link to Toyota's SUVs.

While this is by no means a low-mileage vehicle, we’re pretty sure somebody is going to pay a lot of money to put such a well-kept and heavily customized FJ62 Toyota Land Cruiser in their garage.

As I sit down to write this, it's dawning on me that I have owned all three of these vehicles at one point or another. The Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road is the one that currently shades my driveway. You've seen it before. Twice.

But I actually brought my wife and newborn daughter home from the hospital in a 1996 Toyota RAV4, a four-door model with a manual transmission, lockable center differential and a Torsen rear differential. It may have looked like a hiking boot, but it handled like a rally car on my dirt road commute, which was so utterly deserted I could fully exploit the route's numerous corners and float over its perfectly-shaped jump.

There's no need to explain the Toyota Land Cruiser, one of Toyota's earliest successful products. The 2020 Toyota Land Cruiser Heritage Edition celebrates some 60 years of popularity of a vehicle that has survived the segment's "mall wagon" phase and the rise of crossovers. Its already-sterling reputation has received an additional recent push from the rise of overlanding — an outdoor pastime that has always existed but only recently got a press agent.

By comparison, the Lexus LX is a more recent development. Debuting in 1996, the LX 470 was little more than an 80-series Land Cruiser with cladding, a Lexus badge and a higher price. The amount of styling differentiation and luxury specialization has increased over the years to the point that the newest LX 570 actually seems like a completely different vehicle.

The Land Rover Discovery HSE TD6 is one heck of an SUV and in this latest video, CarWow set out to see how the Discovery performs against some other powerful SUVs in its class in a tug of war.

Johnny Schaer, known by his brand name Johnny FPV, zoomed onto our radar back in 2018 when he captured drifting with some of the best drone footage and handling we've ever seen. Based in Chicago, he's a drone racer and specialist who also uses his skills to create first-person video content that's unlike anything seen before. His most recent video, which dropped this week, explores all parts of Abu Dhabi, from the city to the track to the dunes.

The first Johnny FPV video we posted was strictly about Formula Drift, as was the second one we posted in 2019. While those clips were restricted to a racetrack, this video is a little different. Edited by New York City-based Jake Irish and set to a soundtrack from the two-brothers band Two Lanes, "Sandscape" visits Abu Dhabi's vast environment from an aerial perspective. 

The rumors claiming the next generation of Toyota's gargantuan Land Cruiser will surf the industry's downsizing wave are getting louder. The off-roader will get a high-tech makeover, but it will remain as rugged as ever.

In 2020, the Land Cruiser is available with a gasoline-powered V8 in the United States, among other markets, and with a diesel-burning V8 in countries like Australia. All signs point to both eight-cylinders retiring along with the current-generation model. Japanese magazine Best Car learned Toyota will argue there's a replacement for displacement by making the Land Cruiser available with a twin-turbocharged V6 engine borrowed from Lexus.

Toyota has launched a limited edition version of the Land Cruiser in Australia, named the Land Cruiser Sahara Horizon.

The team in charge of Kia's Australian division is asking the company's top brass for a rugged, body-on-frame SUV with Toyota Land Cruiser-like off-road capacity. The model could arrive quickly if it's approved for production. "We need probably one or two bigger [SUVs], to be quite honest. That would help us dramatically," affirmed Damien Meredith, the chief operating officer of Kia Australia, in an interview with Motoring. He added there's room above the Sorento for a new SUV, and he requested a sturdy model capable of towing and going off-road. In the United States, Kia's biggest SUV — and the largest car it has ever put its name on — is the well-received Telluride (pictured) released in 2019. It's not as tough as the body-on-frame model Meredith has in mind, and it's not sold in Australia because it's currently only available with left-hand drive. Kia would need to create a new model to challenge the Land Cruiser Prado (which is smaller than the standard model, and sold as the Lexus GX in the United States) and the Ranger-based Ford Everest in Australia, but it might not have to start from scratch. In 2019, Meredith confirmed Kia and sister company Hyundai are jointly developing a body-on-frame pickup aimed at Toyota's Tacoma-sized Hilux and the Ford Ranger, Australia's best- and second-best-selling vehicles in 2019. Kia could follow the path blazed by its rivals and turn its upcoming medium-sized truck into a family-friendly SUV. This strategy would give its Australian division the Land Cruiser-punching model it's asking for, while allowing it to leverage the benefits of economies of scale by sharing parts across several model lines. Kia stressed the SUV on Meredith's wish list hasn't been approved for production yet, so it's far too early to tell whether it will be available in the United States. Offering it outside of Australia is a must, though. Toyota sold 18,335 units of the Land Cruiser Prado on the Australian market in 2019; even if Kia tops it with 20,000 sales, that's not nearly enough volume to justify developing a new car, even one built on an existing platform. We'll have a better idea of what the future holds for Kia's global SUV range when the aforementioned trucks make their debut. Both are expected on sale by 2021, so they're around the corner, and neither has been confirmed for the American market yet; Hyundai's version is unrelated to the Santa Cruz also under development.

Production of the outgoing Toyota Land Cruiser kicked off in 2007, which makes the J200 one of the oldest SUVs in the market.

SALT LAKE CITY — Greg Miller's Land Cruiser Heritage Museum in Salt Lake City is one of the most fascinating and comprehensive collections of vintage cars we've ever visited. Of the dozens of off-roaders on display, the most significant one is arguably a humble, unrestored 1958 FJ25 that stands out as the very first Land Cruiser sold in America. Toyota created its American division on October 31, 1957, and turned a Rambler dealership in Hollywood into its headquarters. Sales began the following year. John Rose, the owner of Rose Toyota, placed the first Land Cruiser order as quickly as he could, and delivered it at its American port of entry because his store wasn't built yet. The museum's records indicate the FJ25's original owner (so the first Land Cruiser customer in America) was a school teacher in Long Beach, California, though the person's name either isn't known, or is being kept private. The Land Cruiser wasn't the smash hit Toyota hoped for. Challenging the Jeep CJ-5 on its home turf was easier said than done, and the first FJ25 sold here was also the only example that found a home in 1958. The company sold a mere 288 vehicles in America that year, including the Land Cruiser and 287 units of a sedan named Toyopet Crown. America's first FJ didn't bask under the Pacific sun for very long. In the early 1960s, it changed hands and moved to Arrowhead in the mountains surrounding Los Angeles, where a woman named Mrs. Trembly used it as a snow plow. Its snow-clearing days ended when Mrs. Trembly died in 1967. James Ultl inherited it, and later sold it to TLC 4x4 in Chatsworth, California. Miller purchased it in 2013 and donated it to the museum. The Land Cruiser is tough, but the odds of the first example sold in America surviving decades of use were spectacularly low. Owners had a tendency to drive FJs into the ground by using them as snow plows (like Mrs. Trembly did), tractors, tow trucks, or a variety of other purposes deemed too merciless for regular cars. Example number one (which, fittingly, is nicknamed One) wears many battle scars, but it has fared relatively well, all things considered. The Land Cruiser Heritage Museum values original, unrestored models, and many of the trucks in its collection are in this condition, so don't expect to see One wearing shiny paint and new upholstery anytime soon.