It feels like a betrayal when automakers attempt to apply one model’s glory to a less-deserving product. A Mustang is Parnelli Jones and Frank Bullitt, equal parts hair and grit. Not an electric crossover. A Blazer is a classic K5 SUV on mud terrains, its flanks spattered with black earth torn free by a ripping V-8. Not a compromised soft-roader. And a Land Cruiser is Toyota’s globe-conquering standard-bearer, the model that defined the brand as the pinnacle of reliability and capability. For more than two decades, Toyota has attempted to walk a fine line with its range-topping SUV, appeasing comfort-addicted Americans while maintaining the truck’s legendary build quality and off-road prowess. Now, at the end of the line for the 200 Series, Toyota is wrestling with the future of its longest-running nameplate. Will it abandon the traits that made it an enthusiast darling? We looked to the 2020 Heritage Edition for answers.
This story originally appeared in the July 2020 issue of Road & Track.
The Land Cruiser has been in continuous production for more than 60 years, and Toyota marked the occasion with a set of special editions for markets around the world. Here, that meant a focus on style and luxury. Buyers can pick from two colors: the Midnight Black Metallic of our tester or Blizzard Pearl white. Unique badges, bronze 18-inch BBS aluminum wheels, and a Yakima MegaWarrior roof rack round out the changes outside. Small stuff, but combined, they make the Land Cruiser look the part. Indoors, Toyota deleted the third-row seating for additional cargo room and stuffed the cabin with black leather, as well as heated and ventilated front seats. The truck also comes with Toyota’s usual rash of driver aids, including everything from the company’s Safety Sense system, which is designed to detect pedestrians or other vehicles, to lane-departure warning and a pre-collision system that can automatically apply the brakes if the vehicle thinks you’re in danger of banging the SUV off of a fixed object. More on that later. There is a reason the used market is flooded with 250,000-mile Land Cruisers. They’re made to vacuum up distance comfortably and quietly. By today’s standards, the 5.7-liter V-8’s 381 horsepower and 401 lb-ft of torque are nothing to brag about, but the engine is up to the task of lugging the vehicle’s 5700 lbs around, thanks in part to an eight-speed automatic transmission. On the road it feels like a truck, but a comfortable one. And because the Land Cruiser has grown in every dimension during its six-plus decades on this planet, there’s room for everyone. But here we start to sense the conflict at the core of the Land Cruiser. While the cabin is library quiet and appointed with every luxury touch you could want, that goofy and largely pointless roof rack howls at highway speeds.
Much of what has made the Land Cruiser a Land Cruiser remains present. The center console is littered with buttons and dials, all aimed at manipulating the four-wheel drive system. There’s a stout frame beneath the bulging sheetmetal. Meaty tow hooks rest front and rear, ready to snatch lesser metal from the mire. An array of underbody armor keeps the truck safe from rocks and logs, and includes bash plates for the front independent suspension, the radiator, fuel tank, and transfer case. That last bit houses a Torsen limited-slip center differential, which can be locked via one of those buttons.
But you won’t find a traditional e-locker in the front or rear. Instead, Toyota relies on its Active Traction Control, A-TRAC, to put power to the ground. Like most systems of its ilk, it relies on wheel-speed sensors to determine which tires have grip and which don’t, pulling engine power or applying the brake to the spinning wheel to help the Land Cruiser dig its way out. In theory. But there’s a reason legitimate off-roaders like the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon and Mercedes-Benz G-Class have held onto their lockers: they work.
Those may seem like strange bedfellows, but the Land Cruiser, and especially the kitted-up Heritage Edition, finds itself priced between the brawling American and the upper-crust German. Our tester, with delivery and the $2330 in Heritage options, stickered at over $88,000. In a way it’s a symbol of where the SUV has been and where it’s going. Adjusted for inflation, a 1990 Land Cruiser would have cost you a little more than $41,000. Wrangler money today. It was also anemic, with an underpowered straight-six engine, and creature comforts were limited to cruise control and air conditioning. SUVs are always a balancing act between capability and comfort, and market forces have pushed the big Toyota toward the former for years, where fatter profit margins lie. Up to the lofty heights where the Escalades and Range Rovers prance from valet to valet, not valley to valley.
We aimed ours at Caryville, Tennessee, towards the back side of Windrock OHV Park. The area’s laced with goat paths and two-track trails that scramble up into the hills overlooking the I-75 corridor. At the top, a wide bald is the perfect place to catch a sunrise, the kind of experience the Land Cruiser was made to deliver. It’s hard to overstate just how good the suspension is on this truck. Like most of Toyota’s off-road offerings, the big 200 Series Land Cruiser glosses over everything but the most apocalyptic of road surfaces. While there’s still a beefy stick axle out back, you’d never know it. The truck sails over washboards and holes, rocks and ruts. No wonder the thing has found such a loyal following in places where pavement is scarce: Australia, Mongolia, Chile.
But we ran into an issue at our first obstacle. The trail tightened, with banks on either side. The two-track was off camber with a good incline and a deep rut on the downhill side. Not a problem. Stay left, use a bit of momentum to pop through the loose mud collected at the bottom of the climb, and let the Land Cruiser do what it does best. Or did best. I hadn’t taken the time to switch off the truck’s arsenal of driver aids, which meant that at the exact moment when I approached the hill, when I needed my momentum the most, the forward collision detected the banks on either side, sounded an alert, and stabbed the brakes, sliding us into the rut. The rear valance kissed the opposite bank.
That didn’t go as planned. I shifted to neutral, thumbed the A-TRAC button and the center diff lock, and set the terrain selector to Mud before sliding the shifter back to drive. I plied the accelerator, attempting to gain enough wheelspin to clear the treads, but A-TRAC simply pulled throttle, and we sat there, stuck fast. How could this machine, this $90,000 tribute to everything Land Cruiser has ever meant, be undone by something as simple as six inches of slop on the side of a hill? It wasn’t entirely the truck’s fault. While the person who greenlit those gorgeous BBS wheels deserves a Nobel Prize for excellence in the face of corporate blandness, they’re wrapped in unbecoming street rubber. We know why Toyota chose the Dunlop Grandtrek AT23 tires. They’re long-wearing, quiet, and likely help the truck net its meager 14 mpg combined EPA rating. But they also provide exactly zero off-road grip, a shortcoming that cannot be overcome with processing power.
Another pang of conflict. Edge further towards civility or ship the Land Cruiser with competent all-terrains? Maybe they’re louder. Maybe they suck up a bit of fuel economy. But do you care with that windsail of a rack bolted to the roof? We extracted ourselves by switching off every aid, every bit of traction control, and getting righteous with the throttle, reversing out of the rut. Mud went atmospheric, and the Land Cruiser wallowed its way out, its sides sprayed in Pollock arcs and splotches. I got out and eyed the truck. The rear valance was scratched and punched in, that special black paint marred by pebbles. We’d been on the trail for less than five minutes.
It wasn’t the looming paperwork or phone calls that stung. It wasn’t the frustration of damaging a vehicle that costs well more than the average American makes in a year, either. It was the feeling that the mighty Land Cruiser has lost its place in this world and that we’ve lost something because of it. Now, in a time when fewer and fewer automakers are willing to carry the enthusiast banner forward. When BMW will water down its steering and slap ever more obnoxious grilles on its vehicles. In our world of crossover Blazers and Mustangs, of baby Broncos and automatic-only Supras, this felt like a betrayal.
We turned around and picked another path up the ridge. The Land Cruiser lumbered along, working its way up and over a few rock steps with zero drama and wading through shallow water here and there. Out our windows, the valley unfolded. The East Tennessee ridges sprawled out below us, stacks of them wandering off to the blue horizon. But the higher we went, the tighter the trail grew. Spring had seen brambles and limbs explode onto the track, turning our route into a green tunnel that threatened to rake the Land Cruiser’s paint. In a smaller vehicle, a cheaper one, who would care? But in this, the last of the 200 Series Land Cruisers, we begged off rather than keep pressing our luck. We scrambled back down the ridge and off to a creekside picnic instead, the split tailgate serving as our lunch table.
Sitting there, watching the water slide by, it became clear how thoroughly automakers have abandoned the cheap, durable off-road segment. Jeep and Toyota may sell Wranglers and 4Runners by the bushel, but both models have steadily crept up in size and cost. That rising tide has lifted the models above it. Models like this Land Cruiser. The question is, how long can manufacturers keep leveraging nameplates further and further from their roots before alienating the customers who brought them to prominence?
Toyota has made it clear that the sun is setting on the fifth-generation Land Cruiser after 13 years in production. This vehicle, the Heritage Edition, feels like the model has been chased to its logical conclusion: a big, thirsty, comfortable luxury cruiser that cashes in on the SUV’s reputation. But the vehicle’s story won’t end there. Toyota plans to unveil the next-generation 300 Series later this year, and rumors already point towards a more efficient driveline, among other changes. We hope there’s room in the new Land Cruiser for the traits that have made generations of off-road enthusiasts fall for the machine over and over again. That it earns the badge we all hold dear.
