Toyota Land Cruiser goes retro for 2024

The new car goes on sale at the end of the year and will likely cost £50,000; it's the latest version of the vehicle that first went on sale 72 years ago in the form of the (unfortunately titled) Toyota BJ, which landed in the showroom on 1 August 1951. Proving its off-road prowess, the BJ promptly became the first offroader to reach the sixth station on the slopes of Mount Fuji. Toyota has sold 11.3 million Land Cruisers since. 

The new model looks to tap into the retro styling of the original but in a thoroughly modern package. It has a "back to origins" design with a boxy shape, squared-off wheel arches and retro touches such as 'TOYOTA' scrolled across its grille. First Edition models (just 3,000 are heading to Europe) get circular headlights that look so right; they should be standard-fit across the range. A Sand-and-Smoky-Blue bi-tone paint job completes the look.

Under the new-old looks, the 2024 Land Cruiser still gets a rugged ladder-frame chassis that's 50 per cent stiffer than on the car it replaces while still allowing for great wheel articulation. 

It's the first Land Cruiser to come with electric power steering, and it's specially tuned to filter out kickback that's claimed the thumbs of many a mud plugger. It also means the Toyota can steer for you on the motorway and in slow-moving traffic queues.

Another new off-road trick is the car's SDM (Stabiliser with Disconnection Mechanism) system. It can disconnect the car's anti-roll bars allowing for huge wheel articulation in off-road conditions while reconnecting on the road for better control in corners.

SDM should be ideal for tackling rock gardens, and Toyota has upgraded its Multi-Terrain Monitor for attacking such an obstacle. It can give you a 360-degree of the area around the car as well as giving you an augmented view of the ground underneath the vehicle, allowing you to place the Land Cruiser's wheels exactly where you want them.

The Land Cruiser's engine fits the unstoppable feel of the rest of the car. It's a 2.8-litre diesel that produces 204PS (150kW) and sends its power through an eight-speed automatic gearbox. It has enough torque to allow the Land Cruiser to tow a braked trailer weighing up to 3,500kg. A mild-hybrid version with a 48V power supply joins the range in 2025. 

Inside, you'll find an old-school interior to match the retro exterior. So, while you get a pair of enormous infotainment screens that make it more inviting than the car it replaces, you also get an encouraging number of physical buttons that mean the Land Cruiser should be easier to operate on the move than the latest Range Rover.

At 4,920mm long, 1,980mm wide and 1,870mm tall, the Land Cruiser is a good deal smaller than a Range Rover, but it will be offered in five and seven-seater configurations and promises a commanding driving position that a Nissan Qashqai could only dream of.

So what do you think of the new Toyota Land Cruiser? Is this what we should have seen from the Land Rover Discovery? Let us know your thoughts...