► Gavin Green on the Land Cruiser
► What sets it apart from the rest
► Diesel only in the UK
I have a special relationship with Toyota’s toughest SUV, even if the UK’s SUV buying public does not. It is an old-school 4×4, in a market that favours the soft and citified. It is honest and unpretentious, a working vehicle in a sea of SUV shirkers.
The Toyota Land Cruiser is probably the toughest SUV in the world. Owning one is like owning a piece of granite. It may get weather beaten, but it will never wear out. Plus, it’s fantastic in the rough.
The new one still has a truck-like ladder-frame chassis, lockable diffs, a low-range gearbox and a live rear axle, and is diesel only [in the UK]. These all hurt on-road refinement but make for a better off-roader and superior durability. It’s an SUV for the African bush, the American wilderness, the Australian Outback and the Arabian deserts – if not necessarily UK bridleways. UK sales will be tiny.
Here, there is now little else like it. Most of the tough old-school SUVs – old Defender, Nissan Patrol, Mitsubishi Shogun – have gone, although a new challenger of unproven durability (the Ineos Grenadier) recently arrived.
The latest Land Rover Defender is the most obvious rival. It’s still a serious off-road tool but, nowadays, you’re more likely to see one outside a Beverly Hills boutique than in Oodnadatta while traversing the Outback.
The new Defender – unlike the old one – is aimed at Silicon Valley coders not Welsh valley farmers, at ad-agency creatives not aid-agency carers. Conversely, there is nothing luxurious or upmarket about the Cruiser. It has no pretence at providing prestige transport to the Proms, is ill-suited to school runs, Dorchester doorman won’t doff their caps, and Premier League footballers won’t have one on their fleet.
The Cruiser is not suited to a soft suburban life. If you live in the city and fancy one for its appealing African/Outback image then I plead: don’t do it. It’s like moving a working sheepdog from a farm outside Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant to a four-bed semi in London.
My Cruiser love affair can be traced back to Australia in the ’70s and to my dad’s trusty FJ40 Land Cruiser. As a 16-year-old, L-plates newly acquired, I embarked on a 3000-mile journey through the Outback with my dad and a few of his mates, notably his old rally driving friend ‘Gelignite’ Jack Murray.
Jack was famous for using gelignite to remove obstacles on Outback tracks. Deploying this tactic with notable success, he won the 1954 Round Australia Redex Trial in a Ford V8. (The Redex Trial provided the backdrop to Peter Carey’s novel, A Long Way from Home.)
On my Outback odyssey, I drove the Land Cruiser all the way. The highlight was a visit to Betoota, in south-western Queensland, then officially Australia’s smallest town. The sign as we entered read: ‘Welcome to Betoota. Population 1.’
Betoota’s sole resident was an elderly man called Simon Remienko. A hotel was the only building in town and the only structure on the 250-mile road between Windorah and Birdsville. His nearest neighbour was 140 miles away. Apart from the hotel, the town consisted of a main road, a fuel pump, a camping ground and an airstrip.
Incongruously, we got to use his airstrip. Our Cruiser was part of a two-car convoy and the other vehicle – a Ford pick-up with camper piggyback – had clutch trouble. It was being towed by the Cruiser when, 50 miles or so before Betoota, we saw a convoy of Fords coming our way. They were the only vehicles we’d seen in hours.
At first, it seemed a mirage, common in the desert. In fact, it was Ford Australia’s managing director Sir Brian Inglis on holiday with family and friends. My dad, a journalist and TV presenter, knew him. Sir Brian promised he’d air freight a new clutch to Betoota. Next day it arrived in a small Cessna.
Simon died in 2004 and Betoota is now a ghost town, population zero. I have no idea what happened to my dad’s old Land Cruiser. But I suspect HKG 123 is still giving loyal service, somewhere.