The Land Cruiser’s engine takes the form of a 2755cc four-cylinder turbo diesel with just 201bhp but 369lb ft of torque, all of it available from 1600rpm.
It’s paired with a new eight-speed automatic gearbox with a multi-plate lock-up clutch aimed at improving drivability and economy. There’s a lock-up control function, too, that can be used at low speeds to give the driver greater control over the flow of torque. To that end, this gearbox also has a new ‘dynamic damper structure’ that reduces torque fluctuations to the driveshaft, again improving control, especially when off road.
So, too, has Toyota closed up the gear ratios compared with the outgoing car, to improve both straight-line performance and smoothness as the ’box shifts between gears (the rev drops are notably smaller). Shifts are also said to be 25% quicker than before.
Even so, the Land Cruiser will feel a bit agricultural to anybody coming from, say, a six-pot Defender. The diesel motor has a rugged burble to it and the gearbox is effective but ponderous compared with less serious SUVs, as you would expect.
In any case, there’s reasonably good drivability here, and so the sense of rusticity that pervades is easily chalked up as a necessary by-product of having a driveline that is functional to its core, being designed to propel the Land Cruiser over nearly any terrain without added complication. Just don’t be under any illusions. A driveline this tough is always going to give you the odd jolt in low-speed manoeuvring, and isn’t immune to shunt even when you’re up and running. It’s the price you pay for rock-solid mechanicals.
The lack of performance isn’t quite so easy to justify at this price, and may prompt habitual owners to look back wistfully at V8-fired Land Cruisers of the past. The new car, with its 86bhp per tonne, needs 10.3sec to reach 60mph and feels predictably laboured under full throttle. But what about all that torque? The 10.8sec time for the 30-70mph dash in fourth gear is slower than all its direct rivals, though access to 369lb ft at just 1600rpm makes light work of towing and other arduous tasks, and history suggests this ‘1GD-FTV’ unit should be bulletproof in terms of reliability.
For all its on-road limitations, off road there isn’t much the Land Cruiser can’t handle. With 4WD low-range engaged (via a neat new rocker switch) and the systems in Mud mode, you can turn on Crawl Control. The latter is effectively off-road cruise control that tries to maintain a set speed, which you can vary by twisting the drive mode switch. So configured, the Land Cruiser drags itself up and down slopes and through water troughs while you simply steer. The hardcore off-road enthusiast may enjoy the lever-pulling in an old Defender, but for everyone else this is mighty convenient.
Traversing axle-articulating courses, wading deep water and negotiating steep, slippery slopes, the Land Cruiser feels slightly more effortless than even the bigger-lunged Ineos Grenadier, and matches the capabilities of the world-class new Defender in most ways, except perhaps wading, where its 700mm potential is dwarfed by the air-sprung Brit’s 900mm, and approach/departure angles. The disconnectable front anti-roll bar also makes a meaningful difference in terms of maintaining traction when one of the front wheels is at an extreme level of climb.
