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LAND BRUISER: NEW TOYOTA BARES ITS MACHO MUSCLES

ABOVE: The new Toyota Land Cruiser

22nd November 2009

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A LONG time ago I drove from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock across some of the hottest desert in Australia.

We did the trip in a bunch of Toyota Land Cruisers. Despite the pasting we gave them, they never missed a beat, the air-con blasted an icy cold breeze and nothing broke.

Our guide, a Crocodile Dundee lookalike, stressed that he wouldn’t consider doing the off-road trip in anything other than a Land Cruiser.

Many years later, the Land Cruiser is still around and still hewn from the same rock- solid DNA.

The looks of this new model might not be to all tastes but it’s kind of immaterial. Land Cruisers aren’t about shallowness.

If you want seven seats and the ability to tow a mountain off its moorings day after day after day, this is the vehicle for you.

But it’s real strength is the Tonka-truck construction and the safe knowledge that this thing will still be firing at the
first turn of the key long after the ice caps have disappeared.

The new Land Cruiser comes in three guises – LC3, LC4 and (can you guess?) LC5. Using the same rugged four-
pot, three-litre diesel driving through a manly five-speed auto box, the range starts at £29,795 and tops out at £44,795.

Granted, you will get more opulent luxury from Land Rover’s Discovery but the Land Cruiser’s real charm is the unbelievable capability both on and off road.

I know which I’d choose if my life depended on it...