July 11, 2024 • 39 mins
The Toyota Land Cruiser returns as a more affordable SUV, Tony and Eddie take it off-roading to find out if it lives up to the Land Cruiser name.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Car and Drivers. Into Cars, a
podcast from iHeartMedia is Ruby Studio, brought to you by
eBay Motors. I'm Tony ki Roger, the editor in chief
of Car and Driver, and I'm joined by my co host,
former editor in chief and current Chief Brand and Content Officer,
Eddie Alterman, and together we're Into Cars.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Each episode of this podcast covers a new car that
we think is worthy of your attention. The cars we
select may feature a novel design, cutting edge engineering, or
something entirely new. We'll cover the stories behind the cars,
answering the whys and exploring the ons to bring you
into the experience. We'll drive the things and let you
listen in, and then we'll sit down with the people
who actually made the cars to answer our questions about them.
(00:45):
Come along for the ride and you'll hear it all
the good, the bad, and the ugly and the way
that only carrent Driver delivers.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
This episode of Into Cars is a little different. Today
we'll be off roading and the reimagined Toyota Land Cruiser
to find out if it lives up to its legendary name.
After crawling over rocks and getting dirty, we'll dust ourselves
off and sit down with Marcus Umlau, Toyota's general manager
of truck strategy, to find out more about the engineering
and decisions behind the land Cruiser.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So here we have it, the long waited twenty twenty
four Toyota Land Cruiser. It's been on hiatus, this model
since twenty twenty one. It's changed a lot since then,
but a lot of the change is not dimensional.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
It's visual.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
No, it's still a big truck. It's the same wheelbase.
I think it's the same with it's within an inch
on height or two inches on height, and the overall
length is about the same, So it's the same size truck.
It's just not the same land cruiser though. It's not
the eighty seven thousand dollars lankerser. This one is a
lot less money. It starts in the mid fifties. The
one we have here, though, is a bit more expensive.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
This is the first edition, yeah, fully loaded.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's funny how it can present so differently than that
last slang cruiser that we had. What was the model
on that FJ FJ two.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Hundred two hundred, Yeah, FJ two hundred, the one in
the eighties I think was the sixty two, and then
the one in the nineties was the eight eighty, and
then we went to the one hundred, and then we
went to the two hundred, which was the last one.
And they were great.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
They were really like the sort of Japanese rang drover
in a way. They were really deluxe, very very capable.
But I doubt anybody outside of Dubai used them off road.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, certainly not. The first owners use them off road.
The second owners are third owners because the things just
lasted forever too. There was a repair shop in my
old neighborhood in Los Angeles and the guy would drive
the cars around trying to see what was wrong with them,
and he drove a land Cruiser buy me once. I
said what's wrong with this? And he was like, absolutely not.
The last like three hundred thousand miles on it. They
(02:50):
don't break. And they were complicated too.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, I mean three locking diffs and a lot of electronics,
but bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
This is more of a return to basics. So it's
on the new Toyota truck platform, the TNNGA, and this
is the supposed two to fifty series. The Lexis lex
is on the three hundred series, which is over and
above this, but you get this for a lot less
money than the Lexus.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And there are four similar vehicles off that two to
fifty platform. You've got the Lexus g X five fifty,
which is a three row suv but very similar to this.
Then you have the land Cruiser, then you have the
fore Runner, and then you have the Tacoma. It looks
less like a luxury piece than the outgoing FJ two
hundred land Cruiser.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, that had sort of evolved into a luxury truck.
This is more of a retro feel to it. It
looks more like the land cruisers of the eighties of
the seventies. It has some of that feel. It even
has some of the feel of the FJ Cruiser, like
the headlights around on the first edition and on the
nineteen fifty eight model.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So it starts at the nineteen fifty eight model. That's
right then then, but this, you know, it's fully loaded,
but you get those retro round lights and I love
the look of it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, for sure, it's real upright. I like my SUVs
to have upright windshields, lots of glass. If I'm buying
an suv, I want it to look like an suv.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But there's also a functional benefit to that. You can
see out the thing better. You can look down the
side of it when you are off roading. You can
see the raised capitals on the hood. You know where
the vehicle stops. So a lot of things that they did.
I think we're to make it a little bit trimmer
off road, although it still is wide.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It is it is, but yeah, like you said, you
can see the corners and there's a lot of glass
in there and it's all upright glass. Your view out
of it is wonderful and it's nice to see that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
The main difference between this and the GX five point
fifty is the engine. This right, this has the hybrid four,
the two point four liter making three.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Three twenty six six twenty six source part same as
the top engine that you can get in the Tacoma.
This one did sixty in our testing in seven point
seven seconds. The GX is over a second quicker.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Wow, and it's heavier.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, it's a significant difference.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
That looks great, And I love this military khaki brown
with the contrasting gray roof.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, it's called trail dust is the color that we're
looking at. It's sort of khaki. It's got a little
tiny bit of olive in it. It's cool and it
sort of goes with the retro feel of it as well.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
That's very cool.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, black eighteen inch wheels and thirty three inch tires,
so it looks capable, but it also looks a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Like a Nissanic Sterra.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, I mean Nissanic stairs are capable. But yeah, I
think part of it's that roof rack. That's true. That
is adding to it. It's a lot bigger than a
next Sterra though it is big.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Let's go around the back. You have the separate tailgate.
You can open the glass independently.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Oh yeah, that's a Toyota hallmark. And being able to
open that rear glass super cool. So even the badging
is retro. Instead of having the modern Toyota badge which
looks like a little cowboy hat stylized cowboy hat, Toyota
is written out and the font of land Cruiser is
the classic land Cruiser font and it's cool little touches
like that. And what is this sink toe? I think
it owes six thousand pounds, which is less than the
(05:58):
g X five point fifty, which has a more powerful powertrain.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
One of those cool retro touches is the mudflaps that
have little straps holding them.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
In places behind them. Are it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Okay, let's hop in barrier and drive it. Oh, that's
not a real expensive sound.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That was a little tinny.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I mean you would get in the old f J
two hundred and it was just like a bank vault.
It was really nice horizontal elevator.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, and super super damped and you'd never hear that
vibration coming out the door panel.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
No, that's real tinny. And I think the materials in
here are nice enough. But it's clearly that this has
been built to a lower price.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, for sure, and it's way more affordable, and the
old land Cruiser priced itself out of relevance. The Lex
sort of took over that buyer and Toyota to relaunch this.
They wanted to actually sell the land Cruise.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That one started at eighty seven grand and it was
on to reach for most people. But this one starts
at fifty seven grand, although the one we're sitting in
is seventy six thousand dollars. This first edition so not
such a huge delta from the old.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It's aimed right at the meat of the market, where
the Bronco.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Plays, where the Wrangler plays.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And interestingly, where are the Forerunners going to play? Yeah, yeah,
I think Jeep finally found the top of where you
can price a Jeep. I think the three ninety two
at over eighty thousand dollars, I think is pretty much
as expensive as as an off roader.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
But have you driven that thing?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
It's wild, it wild, It's really hilarious. This is you know,
it's a return to the roots, as you said, of
a more affordable land.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Cruiser, and I think they've positioned it smartly.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, it's more of a Toyota. The land Cruiser had
sort of turned into Alexis, and then they built Alexis
out of it, and then Lexus sort of was like, okay,
this is our vehicle now, and then the land Cruiser
reinvented itself in a way at fifty percent less money.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Basically.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, I think the interior is you know, it's a
good fifty thousand dollars interior. Some vinyl wrapping here. Yeah,
it looks kind of like leather. It feels a little
bit like leather. The gauges look great.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, it's fully modern in that way, but it's sort
of upright in old school Toyota at the same time too.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, it feels very utilitarian in here, and there's lots
of buttons and knobs, which I like. You have a
Molde select knob here, a drive mode button. You have
crawl mode, hill descent control. You have your locking center diff,
you have your locking rear diff. You have the ability
to disconnect the anti roll bars to get more off
road traction. You got a switch for high four and
(08:44):
low four. So it looks toally legit, but it's also
something that you can just drive as in every day.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And it's the hybrid powertrain shared with the Tacoma, so
you get a tiny bit of electric power and better
fuel economy than g X five to fifty. I think
the combined fuel economy number is in the low twenties,
around twenty two or twenty three miles a gallon.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's pretty good. Well, let's take it off road and
see what's up. All right, buckle up, we've got our
off road flag.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
We're at Bundy Hill off Road Park in beautiful Jerome, Michigan,
and this is a place where we come to play
on occasion. I think we've taken the bronco here.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, we'll bring comparison tests here and test out vehicles
see how well they can do off road.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I also love there are a couple handles here.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Oh yeah, on the A pillar and the A I mean,
look at how upright these A pillars are.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It's a great panoramic, kind of widescreen TV effect. We
are off roading solo. Are you locked up? Are we
already stuck in here?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Now?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
We're not stuck, just creeping through a real slow that
we're in tipping. You're still in high four though I'm
not quite ready for low Okay, we just got over
our first obstacle. I didn't hear too much scraping.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
No, everything is still in working.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Order, and now it's in hybrid mode.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Silently creeping through this sand pit here.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
That's kind of eerie.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It is weird, but we're saving the environment by trampling
on it.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
The off road park. I think the speed limit here
is ten miles an hour. I'm going five miles an
hour very gingerly as we traverse this.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, and off roading is the most fun way to
go five miles an hour that's right. You know, it's
funny thinking about this versus the Ford Bronco. The Ford
Bronco has all sorts of trick electronic stuff, like that
trail turn that'll pivot the vehicle like around a tree
and really decreasing the turning radius by breaking the inside wheel.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
It gives you all sorts of video spotters.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
But you know, the Bronco is really going after the
Jeep and really trying to out jeep the Jeep.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
This is not doing that. No, I mean, it still
functions as a regular suv. It's pretty quiet on the highway,
a fuel economies DC and.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Doesn't have those crazy knobby tires. Yeah, that's why I
get with the Sasquatch package.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
They'll leave that to the aftermarket and the old man
Emo lift kit.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
That's right, and there will be a healthy, healthy aftermarket
for this thing.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So what are your first impressions. It's pretty unfazed.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So what's funny is it's a hybrid, so it's doing
what hybrids do at low speeds and we're just running
on electric motors and it's completely silent there the engine
just kicked on.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
That's very cool.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Oh, it says bottomless dump over there. I don't think
we want to. No, that's not over there.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That doesn't look appealing at all. So we're just traversing
some off road trails. We've got it all the way
up to twelve miles an hour. The ride's really nice too.
It is nice, huge, really plush. Yeah, does not beat
you up at all. And on the road. The structure
of this truck feels really solid. I was worried it
was going to feel like the previous generation Tacoma, which
(11:52):
felt like there was no structure underneath you. But it's
really solid. But I am missing the old Lancruiser had
this wonderful the steering that felt like it was loobed
by cold molasses.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And it gave the truck this like invincible feel almost,
And it felt like you were driving this ten thousand
pound vehicle just because it forced you to slow down.
It forced you to just not put any inputs in
that we're big and this one is more normal, so
I think. But people appreciate this, but I kind of
missed the old one.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah. The last one is like piloting a cargo ship.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yes, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
But I think our biggest risk to life and limb.
Here is cutting a tire on one of these rocks, that's.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Right, Yeah, it's pretty easy. One of the things that
you want in an off rudder, too, is a really
predictable accelerator pedal, so that you can feed in just
the right amount of throttle. You can feed in just
everything perfectly, and this really does that, even in hybrid mode.
It just gives you the torque that you need, and
it's very predictable.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm just in the passenger seat right now, but it
seems like a pretty easy vehicle to place.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah. I can see every corner of it. I can
see exactly where the back window is. I can see
the front corners perfectly. And then Toyota has lowered the
side glass too relative to the windshield, so I can
see out my door really well too.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Let's go up.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
This is giving climb this.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Okay, you might need to modify your settings.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Sure, Let's let's lock up the center diff.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Okay, I'll lock up the rear diff. A couple of buttons,
why not belt and suspenders.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
On a pair of sands and belts. Let's put it
in dirt. Okay, it doesn't have an air suspension, so
we're not lifting it. The ground clearance stays at eight
point seven inches no matter what you do, unless you
put larger tires on it. Now we're climbing this grade.
It's not having any trouble whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
No, that's super easy.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
There's some big rocks at the end of it. It
also has a big skin play up front too. All right,
this is a little more treacherous on the downslope, So
we're gonna put it in. Let's see how their hill
descent control works. Call it DAC crawl. So if we
hit the crawl button, we can adjust the max speed
that it's going to go. So let's go all the
way down to two. You can go as high as
(14:01):
eighteen as well.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
That seems so it's going to use the breaks.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It's going to use the brakes to slow us down here.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, eighteen seems a little Yeah, it's a little aggressive.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh, and it's holding it right at two. Oh I
just saw three, but we're going back to two. Oh.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
It's just so easy.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
It takes all the thought out of it.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It's like an autonomous vehicle.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
All I have to do is steer and avoid the
really big ruds. Not exactly new technology, but adjusting it's cool.
Let's climb this little hill here. It looks like it's
pretty steep up top. So it's going to test the
breakover angle, which is actually better than the old land Cruiser. Right.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
It has the same approach angle as the old one,
but a better breakover angle.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, and on the same wheelbase. We're at the top
making a tight left. It's gonna lean a little back
into the crawl and just make this super easy on ourselves.
Park parking warning.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Rock ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Nice. Okay, that was easy.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It's it's been easy so far, which is good. Can
I take a Yeah, you want to try it? I
go watch the door slam.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Oh, there it is again.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I don't know what your Uber passenger rating is, but
mine's pretty high because I don't slam the doors, so
I'm not really even pushing. I'm not even slamming the
door that hard and it's making that noise.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, that's a great tip. By the way, don't slam
your Uber driver's door.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, you won't get a five star rating. That looks
a little That looks a little too eight me. Yeah,
it's a little narrow. Yeah. The electric assist allows this
four cylinder to bump up to four hundred and sixty
five pound feet of torque. But it does have a
really small battery and the pedal's nice.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
It is nice and it's very easy to modulate.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Oh there's another breakover angle test. There we go, No problem.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'm going to do it old style hill descent just
by breaking. That's a little bit more fun. But that
wasn't all that challenging.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I like that. There's no steering kickback, that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, you're not getting any weird kind of phases where
the steering goes light or it kicks back in your.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Hand, right. I haven't seen it snap once. And we're
going over stuff that's kicking the body around, for sure.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
But good tip off roading.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Do not hook your thumbs into the spokes of the
wheel like you might do on road, because if there
is kickback, to break your thumbs or at least give
you a little because that's.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Oh wow, we're getting a little crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I think we are. I wouldn't go in there. Okay,
let me back.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You can turn around. Okay, there's a sign on the
tree that says wild.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
This is where that trail turned feature on the Bronco
would really help. Yeah, which is not making a fourteen
point turn here, try not to hit the tree.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
This is where spotters would help as well. Yeah, but
the plushness of the ride is really pretty sure. I'm
there's not even that much head toss, right, I'm not
getting thrown around that much. It's got all this initial compliance.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Breakover angle over angle test pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
There it goes. I mean you can see the corner perfectly,
which have allowed you to avoid that tree. Very very
tight turning radius, which is nice. Hey, it really makes
everything seem pretty easy.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I know, it really is easy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
These mirrors are great because you can see both sides
of the car the whole way down.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
It really is good spotting.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
And well we have an inklinometer.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
There's a nice little inklinometer like the.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I think the really old landcruisers had that too.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
That's a great touch and nice. Okay, let's exit out
of here.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I haven't heard it scrape once.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Well, don't know if that's talent too soon.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I don't know if that's our driving talent or the
breakover angle on the ground clearance. Oh there it is.
There's the front nice.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Oh look at that.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Okay, so this front camera gives you kind of a
ghosted view of your front wheel angle.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, it's like the car is gone in front of
you and you just see the tires.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's wild. I don't want to spend too much time
looking at it, though, I.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Think you should drive those time with.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
No.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
It's really cool.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I mean you have an onboard spotter. It kicks off
at about five miles an hour. Six miles an hour though.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Very cool because it figures if.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You're going that quickly spotter.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I think we decently challenged this thing and it came
through with flying colors. It did easy, did not break
a sweat. No, And like you said, it is extraordinarily
comfortable inside.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I'm shocked at how comfortable it is. I've gone off
roading and stuff and just been made nausey because you
get thrown around so much. It's hard to believe that
the dimensions are so similar to the old land Cruiser,
because this feels so much tidier and so much smaller
when you're driving it. And some of that's a function
of the control feel and the lighter steering, but it
(19:15):
just feels way more manageable out here. And this is
not an off road course. It's designed for really wide vehicles,
ain't there.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
No, and you sit a little bit higher, it feels
like there's a much higher age point in this vehicle.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, I think that's some of that's the lower glass
on the side windows. It's not quite the original range
rover where if you're driving down the road people could
see your hips, but at least people can see you
see your wallet.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
But incredibly comfortable, incredibly smooth, and at odds with the
tiny sound of the doors.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
I think the ride refinement is extraordinary. It is.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's shocking, very fun I mean, this is cool, the
fact that this can do all this without really breaking
a sweat and perform all the functions in need of
a regular sort of family vehicle without paying much price
for it.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
On the road, it's pretty nice on the road. And
you were mentioning that the steering doesn't kick you back here,
which usually means that the steering is completely aloof and
numb on road, and it's not. It's pretty responsive. It's
easy to drive in the highway, it's super easy to
keep in your lane, works really well. I always feel
like when I can't find my way out of one
of these places, it's like a little.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Blair Witch Project.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Just go to the cottage at the back of the like,
I'm pretty sure we just passed that lake. We crossed
over that like seven times for some reason.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Tell you that.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Note what they're doing off road, executing something like this
that has such a dual nature.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
It's pretty spectacular.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
This is quickly going to turn into a lost scenario
where we find out we've died in her in this
off the road park for the rest of our existence.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, when we get out of here, it'll be twenty
sixty three.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And there'll still be a Toyota land Cruiser.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
This will have gone up in value tremendously.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Oh, that looks like an exit.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I see the ramshackle buildings. I see the corrugated tin hunts.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
We didn't die. No, we're back among the living.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Well, we still don't know what year.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
It is.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
All right, we made it good good. That was fun.
It was fun. It was surprisingly easy, I know.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I mean we didn't go up the eighty five percent grades.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
No, we didn't do anything too crazy, but we did
test out the ground clearance and the breakover angle and
the approach angle and the departure angle.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And you know, it's also incredible is how quiet this
thing is. Everything has a great kind of veneer of refinement.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You don't hear the structure creaking at all, not or
any of that. You don't hear the suspension moving around.
A lot of off roaders, you just constantly hear the
suspension moving around.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It felt like there was no torsional weirdness. Good stuff,
Bank in park.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
All right. Cool.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
We may have made it out of the sand pit,
but we aren't out of the woods yet with this
new land Cruiser.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Luckily.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
After the break, we're sitting down with Toyota's Marcus Umwalf
to answer our lingering questions about the truck. Welcome back
to car and drivers into Cars.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
To answer some of our lingering questions, we're joined today
by Marcus Umlauf, Toyota's general manager in charge of truck strategy.
That means Marcus looks over the Tundra and Tacoma pickups,
the Sequoia, the Forerunner, and the land Cruiser subs. If
it's body on frame and it's a Toyota, Marcus is
responsible for it. An avid off roader, Marcus developed Toyota
racing development vehicles in Australia before making the move to
the United States. Welcome to into cars.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Marcus, Hey, Tony, You've great to be here.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So Marcus has head of strategy for Toyota Truck. Let's
talk a little bit about land cruiser strategy. While the
lex six hundred continues on the three hundred series version
of TGAF, this is only two fifty. It's last of
luxury oriented. So why did you guys make that switch
and put the land crews around two fifty and Stata
(23:12):
three hundred.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
It's a really luxurious position to be in to say,
we've got a lot of choices, and a lot of
this came from the new platform. So as we developed
the new F one platform, this is the first time
I've been able to come up with a platform for
all of our trucks at the same time and really
considering like how would this execute as a full size pickup,
as a mid sized pickup, as a Lexus product, or
a Toyder product. And I think being able to start
(23:35):
with that clean sheet of saying what should that platform
be that's going to serve all of these different purposes,
it was a really good opportunity. Stepping back from there,
we now have a bunch of tools, so we say, okay,
so I mean the platform lead was three hundred series Lancers,
so that was the first vehicle on the platform, very
closely followed by Tundra. We had Sequoya LX really surrounding
(23:55):
out that full size execution on that platform. Then we said, okay,
how do we do a slightly smaller version of that
two fifty series was a case of saying and the
way I best sort of framed this is we have
global vehicle with lan Cruiser, and we have a lot
of regional vehicles, so let's say Sequoia forur Runner, they
are very let's call it North American specific. So we've
(24:16):
got the benefit here of saying, hey, we've got a
global truck in land Cruiser, we also have a full
size suv in Sequoia, and now for the first time,
Sequoia gets a lot of the benefits of three hundred
series land Cruiser already built into the truck, but at
a scale it really is for the US market. So
it was a chance and from the very outset of saying, look,
what should lan Cruise be, how do we take lan
Cruiser back to its origins? And really the LC two
(24:38):
fifty is really ideally where that should be.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I do a follow up question to that, Marcus, was
there any internal concern about moving from an eight to
a four and going lower in price and changing the
sort of brand position and aligning it more with Tacoma
forour runner. Did anybody feel like they were devaluing the vehicle?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
I don't think so, and I think it at its
very simplest, it's recognizing who the land Cruiser customers really are.
I mean lank Cruise, who has been a name plate
that has been around for so long. People that know
land Cruiser love land Cruiser, and frankly, I mean lank
Cruiser had really started to drift to become something that
really wasn't the origins of lan Cruiser. I mean, we
were selling a handful of equals a year. It was
(25:20):
a fantastic truck, but it was to a very small
part of the market. And so how do we take
it back to where it should be. We want to
be able to have a truck that's more accessible for
price point, a truck that has the right spec for
people in terms of what they actually want to do
with the land Cruiser, and so it was a great
opportunity for us to bring that back so.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Marcus, now that the land Cruiser has moved down to
price point, it moves a little closer to four Runner.
So how does the land Cruiser fit into the lineup
with the newly announced for Runner.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
These are two tools to compete in one really competitive segment.
So if I looked about historically, we had four Runner,
which was one tool to compete against everything the rugged
suv space, I mean it's super competitive, super passionate, there's
some great product there, and we had one tool to
compete there. It was very intentional to say, if we
have two tools, how do they both play there? So
(26:07):
we have the global tool with land Cruiser, which has
the heritage, it's more boxy, it's more rugged, it really
has that global DNA. And then how do we take
four Runner back to be Also for Runner is really
a story of return to its roots. If we look
at first and second gen four Runner, it used to
be tied to the pickup truck, so it's a little cheekyer,
it's a little sportier. It was important to us to
say they have to have their own role. So four
(26:29):
Runner has got a wider range of powertrains, so it
really is the high volume, broader coverage type vehicle, which
is our regional truck. I mean it very much is
a North American truck. We then have the global truck,
which is so globally renowned, but it's a simpler strategy.
So it's really a case of if you want a
land Cruiser, you buy a land Cruiser. Four Runner really
appeals to a whole bunch of other people, But at
(26:50):
the end of the day, I think it's going to
boil down to choice. People just have two great products
that they can really choose which is the best fit
for them.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
So it's our understanding that Toyota, and I don't know
a few can confirm or deny this while still keeping
your job. Has an internal measure for our durability that
has three categories. Cars are the first category as the
least rugged and durable. The second category is a higher
level up for most of the truck line, and the
highest level the most durable third tier with something like
(27:18):
a ten year lifespan of never being driven on paved road.
Does the land crews are still abide by that In
this two point fifty iteration.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Eighty first and foremost, A really love my job, so
I'm not going to do anything like that. So everything
I came to keep my job. But Link Cruiser is
a fascinating nine plate and without going on too much
of a dangent, there is a huge amount of respect
for it and the huge amount of honestly responsibility to
protect what that is. And so I think you're exactly
rought that there were levels of durability and severity that
(27:50):
all of it vehicles attested to. As you can imagine,
we have globally so much variation in terms of markets,
in terms of usage, in terms of expectation, and vehicles
need to be developed appropriate. What a best sum up
with lan Cruiser is we understand the customer really well
and we make sure that land Cruiser is a lan Cruiser.
And so when it comes to specifications and things like that,
(28:10):
it's not as simple as saying this must survive ten years.
It must say, okay, how is the customer using this
truck and then what is their expectation to survive? So
when we look at severity the way that we rate severity,
there's so many different things. Is it about heat, is
it about dust? Is it about water? Is it about
how rough that road is? And we talk about Toyter's
(28:31):
renowned for Genji gemboots, So go and see and very
much this is almost the epitome of You've got to
go and see it. You've got to go and talk
to these customers. You've got to be in a crocodile
infested river in Australia. You've got to be in a
mind sight somewhere. You're going to be sort of in
the middle of this engine somewhere to really understand how
are people using these vehicles. And it's not a case
of saying, here's just one test that doesn't it's a
(28:51):
case of saying, if I know how the customer is
using this and their expectation to it's not just it'll
get me there, but it will get me back and
it's easy to repair that it's reliable that if that
really is the core tenet, If we know what they
do and we protect that someone can trust the land
Cruizer to do it, That's really what it boils down to.
I'm not dodging the question there as opposed to as
(29:12):
much as it's a case of saying, there's so many layers.
What we just need to do is make sure that
we can actually test to that we might create a
new test of saying, hey, we just saw that someone
in a mind side in Australia is basically catching all
of this mud underneath this truck and it's pulling wiring
harnesses off. How do we make sure that we test
for that? And so it's really a case of saying,
what's the real world test, not necessarily just the standardized
(29:32):
test that would be run.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Can you talk about the decision to kill the land
Cruiser in twenty twenty one, Why not continue to build
it until the new one came out? Did you have
to kill it to relaunch it? What was the story there?
Because Alex came out pretty quickly, it did.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
And Tony, we didn't kill land Cruiser. Lan Cruiser had
little pause until it was ready to come back, and
that's really how it played out. And a lot of
it was Cadencer platform. So as that full sized platform
went to three hundred series, we see how two hundred
series stopped. So we had to cease with production of
two hundred series as it rolled out there, it was
really Sequoia was our next product which was coming to
fit into that space. So full sized body on frame,
(30:06):
rugged suv. We now have the benefits of that three
hundred series development Sequoya comes out there. I think a
lot of what people couldn't see coming was like, don't worry,
we have an answer, and I'll tell you a funny story.
I was. I was speaking at the land Cruise in museum,
and so at the time, we had killed land Cruiser,
and I basically said, you're either the bravest guy or
the dumbest guy to turn up into a whole audience
of Lanceruise enthusiasts after killing the land Cruiser, but I
(30:29):
couldn't tell them what was coming, And knowing full will
that Lane Cruiser was coming back in the form that
it really should be in for the US market was
really exciting, and so I'd sort of called it. It
was really a pause until the product Cadence could actually
get it back into there. But it was really a
pause rather than the death.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Marcus, He's spoken a little bit about how Toyota adapts
different cars and different platforms, different trucks to different environments
in different countries and different use cases.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Can you talk a.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Little bit about how Australia is different from the US
in terms of how they use their vehicles. What is
the off running culture, Like I mean is there a
lot of cosplay where you know, people get the most
rugged g wagon or whatever they can and just drive
it to aroin or whatever.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
In the US, absolutely, so probably the number one thing
in Australia is you assume that everything's going to kill you.
So if you start with that assumption, then everything exactly,
so you sort of start with that assumption.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
The aroline in Australia is legal.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
The fascinating thing about the Australian market and this is why,
I mean, I've got a lot of Australian experience, but
here permanently in the US, because there is so many
similarities in terms of the lost style and what people
do with their trucks and SUVs is very similar. So
people really want to enable a loft style with this.
So whether it's their pickup trucks, whether it's their SUVs,
they want to be able to tow, they haul, They
(31:55):
use it for vacation, they use it for off roading.
So there's a huge recreational cult. There's also a very
practical culture as well that these are a tool of
trade for many people, and so I think there's a
lot of similarities in how people use it or why
they want to use it. The difference has really probably
come in into the environment and just how far. The
biggest difference that I draw here is it's really hard
(32:17):
to find two gas stations in the US that are
all that far away from each other. You might struggle
to find maybe one hundred miles or something like that.
These place is in Australia where you will actually go
on travel and you have to carry extra fuel because
it is the distance is too much. So a lot
of it is the distance, it's the remote nature and
frankly the fact that I mean, if you do get
stuck out there, you die. It's a pretty remote and
(32:38):
dangerous place to be. But the reason why people are
doing is really similar.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Marcus. How long are we going to see barty on
frame vehicles in the mass market? Is it going to
be like the old nine to eleven story where the
line just goes on and on and on and on
and on and on forever. And yeah, I guess if
you make them heavy enough they escape some regulations too.
So as the future really break for body on frame
vehicles at Toyota.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
So, Donny, I'd get a little pilosophical with you and say,
what is body on frame and it's really a case
of you're marrying a platform with a different upper body.
And when we actually look at even where a lot
of dedicated evs have gone, they've got to skateboard that
marry with an upper body. It's really more about what's
the evolution of platforms that you can electrify a platform
you can still have the ruggedness and the strength that
(33:21):
you can go off roading, that you can actually still
have a thirteen twelve thousand pound towing capacity, you still
can haul. So I think it's going to be how
do you have platforms that evolve to be able to
do that? But I think necessarily it's not a case
of body on frame evolution. It's really a case of
how do you marry a platform with an upper body
in a smart way?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Well, that's interesting, and I think you're going to have
to sell the customers on that because they expect body
on frame to look a certain way. And there's also
a theory that American cars were never comfortable not being
body on frame. That's why Americans love body on frame.
So basically, you know, a Catillac Escalade is very close
to a seventies car. I mean it's a V eight
and a body on frame. So that's an Americans are
very comfortable with an understand So even when it evolves,
(34:03):
I think you're going to have to commence customers for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
For sure, and at the end of the day, I'd
also argue I think there's a large group of customers
that just want to have the right end product. I
think there's a lot of enthusiasts that understand the architecture
of the vehicle. There's a lot of others that probably
come along and say, does it have the performance, does
it have the strength, does have the space? I think
if you could execute a really good product for the customer,
whether it's an suv or a pickup truck, and you've
(34:27):
got a slightly different architecture, sure you're going to have
some people that will sort of debate how you got there.
There's also a lot of people if you can do
it right and you don't make them compromise, then I
think they're really going to judge the end product and
how that comes out.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Marcus, I hear you have a seventy two scout project.
How's that coming along? What can you tell us about that?
So you're not going to give me a hard time?
For it not being a Twitter. Ok, there's a new
Scout coming too, but what do they say.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
About the forbidden?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
For it?
Speaker 4 (34:53):
When you grow up in a world of when there's
lankers is everywhere, and then you come to the US
and you find something new and unique, it's pretty exciting
and and actually a little bit of the backstory is
our first family tractor in Australia was a nineteen thirty
nine International h Model and so I had an infinity.
I said, hang on, so he's a really cool truck.
Buy a tractor company that I have an affinity too,
(35:13):
So I had to buy it. So this was a
COVID project. The price was right, and I completely undersold
the amount of time to my wife it was going
to take to work on it. But it it's been
a great project with my boys to really sort of
teach a sixteen year old here a cobrette works and
rebuild a cabaretta and a murder and I just love
the simplicity of something designed by a tractor company. It
had a one ninety six and I got a three
(35:35):
forty five, And literally the one ninety six is just
half of a three ninety two. So the vel train
comes across. I mean they just left four cylinders off.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
So oh yeah, it had that giant four cylinder engine.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Absolutely, so I got it with that. But it's literally
half a V eight, so it's you can use so
many parts, so anyway without geeking out, I just love
the practicality of a tractor company that says, when you
use the same parts, we'll just build four cylinders and
V eights and it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Necessity, yeah, absolutely, just like Lamborghini. My favorite design element
inside is that the land Cruiser says Toyota written out
in script instead of having the Toyota badge inside on
the airbag hub. So I saw that and I was like, yes,
they got it right, they know what That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
That's awesome. I'll got to tell you, Tony. I was
really excited when I saw the very first concept sketch
with Kevin Hunt and the Keelty team little side story.
The thing that's really exciting is the concept and what
came out the other side are so similar. So sometimes
when you actually put it through the big sausage making machine,
I mean, things really get diluted. You lose a lot
of the emotion and passion. But when I very first
(36:37):
saw that, I'm going, I can see FJ sixty two,
I can see FJA eighty and this is really at
the height of when everyone's paying way too much money
for ninety seven Triple Lock eighty series. During Covide, it
was just cool to actually see the truck and go.
It's super modern, but basically it totally without trying to
be a retro ripoff, without trying to be the old
land cruisers. It still has the DNA of land cruiser
(36:59):
and as much you just say it must you engineer it.
It's really cool and you sort of see a bit
of that too.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
It seems like from the outside that you guys have
an easier time slipping through truck designs like the FJ
Cruiser that went from concept to production and not that
much was changed. But I don't necessarily see that in
the cars, but the trucks they seem to get through
unchanged from the original designs, which is really cool.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
We're very, very lucky, especially in the US, where I
mean truck is so unique to the US market. We've
got such a fantastic team between you put Beach and
an Abba.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Well, next time you're in ann Arbor, at the R
and D facility.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
We're right off the street, So yeah, come have lunch
with us. We'll bother you with a lot of annoying,
nitty gritty questions about.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
It's a date.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Thanks Marcus, Thank you, Thanks Chris.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That interview was brought to you by eBay Motors. Visit
ebaymotors dot com for more.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Car friends. The Toygotta Land Cruisers Resurrection is a less expensive,
off road focused suv strikes me as a good idea.
The new land Cruiser proved itself off road and handled
everything we threw at it. The old land Cruiser had
priced itself out of relevance. Bringing the land Cruiser back
will undoubtedly prove to be a wise move for Toyota.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Undoubtedly, But I missed the old one. I liked.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's under the radar luxury. We've already got a Forerunner.
Why do we need this thing?
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Well, you can still get it as a Lexus.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I guess yeah, but I don't want the Lexus.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
For more on the new Toyota land Cruiser, visit carndriver
dot com and be sure to pick up the latest
issue of Car and Driver magazine. Well, Eddie, that's a
wrap on the first season of Car and Drivers Into Cars,
we got to experience some seriously interesting and compelling new
vehicles over the last six episodes, from the Lamborghini uricon
Strado to the most expensive Cadillac ever to Toyota's reimagined
(38:43):
land Cruiser.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
We hope that you had fun riding along with us
and learning from the folks who helped create the cars.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Each week prought surprises in a few laughs.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to rate and
review wherever you listen to podcasts, and stay tuned for
season two.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Car and Drivers Into Cars is a production of Car
and Driver in iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio. Our show is hosted
by Eddie Alterman and myself Tony Kiroga. Our executive producer
is Matt Romano. Our EP of Post Production is Matt Stillo.
Our supervising producer is Sierra Kaiser. This show was edited
by Sierra Spreen special thanks to our location sound recordist
Matthew Cisco. Thanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to Car and Drivers. Into Cars, a
podcast from iHeartMedia is Ruby Studio, brought to you by
eBay Motors. I'm Tony ki Roger, the editor in chief
of Car and Driver, and I'm joined by my co host,
former editor in chief and current Chief Brand and Content Officer,
Eddie Alterman, and together we're Into Cars.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Each episode of this podcast covers a new car that
we think is worthy of your attention. The cars we
select may feature a novel design, cutting edge engineering, or
something entirely new. We'll cover the stories behind the cars,
answering the whys and exploring the ons to bring you
into the experience. We'll drive the things and let you
listen in, and then we'll sit down with the people
who actually made the cars to answer our questions about them.
(00:45):
Come along for the ride and you'll hear it all
the good, the bad, and the ugly and the way
that only carrent Driver delivers.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
This episode of Into Cars is a little different. Today
we'll be off roading and the reimagined Toyota Land Cruiser
to find out if it lives up to its legendary name.
After crawling over rocks and getting dirty, we'll dust ourselves
off and sit down with Marcus Umlau, Toyota's general manager
of truck strategy, to find out more about the engineering
and decisions behind the land Cruiser.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So here we have it, the long waited twenty twenty
four Toyota Land Cruiser. It's been on hiatus, this model
since twenty twenty one. It's changed a lot since then,
but a lot of the change is not dimensional.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
It's visual.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
No, it's still a big truck. It's the same wheelbase.
I think it's the same with it's within an inch
on height or two inches on height, and the overall
length is about the same, So it's the same size truck.
It's just not the same land cruiser though. It's not
the eighty seven thousand dollars lankerser. This one is a
lot less money. It starts in the mid fifties. The
one we have here, though, is a bit more expensive.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
This is the first edition, yeah, fully loaded.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's funny how it can present so differently than that
last slang cruiser that we had. What was the model
on that FJ FJ two.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Hundred two hundred, Yeah, FJ two hundred, the one in
the eighties I think was the sixty two, and then
the one in the nineties was the eight eighty, and
then we went to the one hundred, and then we
went to the two hundred, which was the last one.
And they were great.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
They were really like the sort of Japanese rang drover
in a way. They were really deluxe, very very capable.
But I doubt anybody outside of Dubai used them off road.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Yeah, certainly not. The first owners use them off road.
The second owners are third owners because the things just
lasted forever too. There was a repair shop in my
old neighborhood in Los Angeles and the guy would drive
the cars around trying to see what was wrong with them,
and he drove a land Cruiser buy me once. I
said what's wrong with this? And he was like, absolutely not.
The last like three hundred thousand miles on it. They
(02:50):
don't break. And they were complicated too.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, I mean three locking diffs and a lot of electronics,
but bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
This is more of a return to basics. So it's
on the new Toyota truck platform, the TNNGA, and this
is the supposed two to fifty series. The Lexis lex
is on the three hundred series, which is over and
above this, but you get this for a lot less
money than the Lexus.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And there are four similar vehicles off that two to
fifty platform. You've got the Lexus g X five fifty,
which is a three row suv but very similar to this.
Then you have the land Cruiser, then you have the
fore Runner, and then you have the Tacoma. It looks
less like a luxury piece than the outgoing FJ two
hundred land Cruiser.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, that had sort of evolved into a luxury truck.
This is more of a retro feel to it. It
looks more like the land cruisers of the eighties of
the seventies. It has some of that feel. It even
has some of the feel of the FJ Cruiser, like
the headlights around on the first edition and on the
nineteen fifty eight model.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So it starts at the nineteen fifty eight model. That's
right then then, but this, you know, it's fully loaded,
but you get those retro round lights and I love
the look of it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, for sure, it's real upright. I like my SUVs
to have upright windshields, lots of glass. If I'm buying
an suv, I want it to look like an suv.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
But there's also a functional benefit to that. You can
see out the thing better. You can look down the
side of it when you are off roading. You can
see the raised capitals on the hood. You know where
the vehicle stops. So a lot of things that they did.
I think we're to make it a little bit trimmer
off road, although it still is wide.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
It is it is, but yeah, like you said, you
can see the corners and there's a lot of glass
in there and it's all upright glass. Your view out
of it is wonderful and it's nice to see that.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
The main difference between this and the GX five point
fifty is the engine. This right, this has the hybrid four,
the two point four liter making three.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Three twenty six six twenty six source part same as
the top engine that you can get in the Tacoma.
This one did sixty in our testing in seven point
seven seconds. The GX is over a second quicker.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Wow, and it's heavier.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, it's a significant difference.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
That looks great, And I love this military khaki brown
with the contrasting gray roof.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, it's called trail dust is the color that we're
looking at. It's sort of khaki. It's got a little
tiny bit of olive in it. It's cool and it
sort of goes with the retro feel of it as well.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
That's very cool.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yeah, black eighteen inch wheels and thirty three inch tires,
so it looks capable, but it also looks a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Like a Nissanic Sterra.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, I mean Nissanic stairs are capable. But yeah, I
think part of it's that roof rack. That's true. That
is adding to it. It's a lot bigger than a
next Sterra though it is big.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Let's go around the back. You have the separate tailgate.
You can open the glass independently.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Oh yeah, that's a Toyota hallmark. And being able to
open that rear glass super cool. So even the badging
is retro. Instead of having the modern Toyota badge which
looks like a little cowboy hat stylized cowboy hat, Toyota
is written out and the font of land Cruiser is
the classic land Cruiser font and it's cool little touches
like that. And what is this sink toe? I think
it owes six thousand pounds, which is less than the
(05:58):
g X five point fifty, which has a more powerful powertrain.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
One of those cool retro touches is the mudflaps that
have little straps holding them.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
In places behind them. Are it's really cool.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Okay, let's hop in barrier and drive it. Oh, that's
not a real expensive sound.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
That was a little tinny.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I mean you would get in the old f J
two hundred and it was just like a bank vault.
It was really nice horizontal elevator.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah, and super super damped and you'd never hear that
vibration coming out the door panel.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
No, that's real tinny. And I think the materials in
here are nice enough. But it's clearly that this has
been built to a lower price.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, for sure, and it's way more affordable, and the
old land Cruiser priced itself out of relevance. The Lex
sort of took over that buyer and Toyota to relaunch this.
They wanted to actually sell the land Cruise.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That one started at eighty seven grand and it was
on to reach for most people. But this one starts
at fifty seven grand, although the one we're sitting in
is seventy six thousand dollars. This first edition so not
such a huge delta from the old.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It's aimed right at the meat of the market, where
the Bronco.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Plays, where the Wrangler plays.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And interestingly, where are the Forerunners going to play? Yeah, yeah,
I think Jeep finally found the top of where you
can price a Jeep. I think the three ninety two
at over eighty thousand dollars, I think is pretty much
as expensive as as an off roader.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
But have you driven that thing?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
It's wild, it wild, It's really hilarious. This is you know,
it's a return to the roots, as you said, of
a more affordable land.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Cruiser, and I think they've positioned it smartly.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, it's more of a Toyota. The land Cruiser had
sort of turned into Alexis, and then they built Alexis
out of it, and then Lexus sort of was like, okay,
this is our vehicle now, and then the land Cruiser
reinvented itself in a way at fifty percent less money.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Basically.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, I think the interior is you know, it's a
good fifty thousand dollars interior. Some vinyl wrapping here. Yeah,
it looks kind of like leather. It feels a little
bit like leather. The gauges look great.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, it's fully modern in that way, but it's sort
of upright in old school Toyota at the same time too.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, it feels very utilitarian in here, and there's lots
of buttons and knobs, which I like. You have a
Molde select knob here, a drive mode button. You have
crawl mode, hill descent control. You have your locking center diff,
you have your locking rear diff. You have the ability
to disconnect the anti roll bars to get more off
road traction. You got a switch for high four and
(08:44):
low four. So it looks toally legit, but it's also
something that you can just drive as in every day.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
And it's the hybrid powertrain shared with the Tacoma, so
you get a tiny bit of electric power and better
fuel economy than g X five to fifty. I think
the combined fuel economy number is in the low twenties,
around twenty two or twenty three miles a gallon.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
That's pretty good. Well, let's take it off road and
see what's up. All right, buckle up, we've got our
off road flag.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
We're at Bundy Hill off Road Park in beautiful Jerome, Michigan,
and this is a place where we come to play
on occasion. I think we've taken the bronco here.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, we'll bring comparison tests here and test out vehicles
see how well they can do off road.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
I also love there are a couple handles here.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Oh yeah, on the A pillar and the A I mean,
look at how upright these A pillars are.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It's a great panoramic, kind of widescreen TV effect. We
are off roading solo. Are you locked up? Are we
already stuck in here?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Now?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
We're not stuck, just creeping through a real slow that
we're in tipping. You're still in high four though I'm
not quite ready for low Okay, we just got over
our first obstacle. I didn't hear too much scraping.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
No, everything is still in working.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Order, and now it's in hybrid mode.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Silently creeping through this sand pit here.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
That's kind of eerie.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
It is weird, but we're saving the environment by trampling
on it.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
The off road park. I think the speed limit here
is ten miles an hour. I'm going five miles an
hour very gingerly as we traverse this.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah, and off roading is the most fun way to
go five miles an hour that's right. You know, it's
funny thinking about this versus the Ford Bronco. The Ford
Bronco has all sorts of trick electronic stuff, like that
trail turn that'll pivot the vehicle like around a tree
and really decreasing the turning radius by breaking the inside wheel.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
It gives you all sorts of video spotters.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
But you know, the Bronco is really going after the
Jeep and really trying to out jeep the Jeep.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
This is not doing that. No, I mean, it still
functions as a regular suv. It's pretty quiet on the highway,
a fuel economies DC and.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Doesn't have those crazy knobby tires. Yeah, that's why I
get with the Sasquatch package.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
They'll leave that to the aftermarket and the old man
Emo lift kit.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
That's right, and there will be a healthy, healthy aftermarket
for this thing.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
So what are your first impressions. It's pretty unfazed.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So what's funny is it's a hybrid, so it's doing
what hybrids do at low speeds and we're just running
on electric motors and it's completely silent there the engine
just kicked on.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
That's very cool.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Oh, it says bottomless dump over there. I don't think
we want to. No, that's not over there.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That doesn't look appealing at all. So we're just traversing
some off road trails. We've got it all the way
up to twelve miles an hour. The ride's really nice too.
It is nice, huge, really plush. Yeah, does not beat
you up at all. And on the road. The structure
of this truck feels really solid. I was worried it
was going to feel like the previous generation Tacoma, which
(11:52):
felt like there was no structure underneath you. But it's
really solid. But I am missing the old Lancruiser had
this wonderful the steering that felt like it was loobed
by cold molasses.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And it gave the truck this like invincible feel almost,
And it felt like you were driving this ten thousand
pound vehicle just because it forced you to slow down.
It forced you to just not put any inputs in
that we're big and this one is more normal, so
I think. But people appreciate this, but I kind of
missed the old one.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah. The last one is like piloting a cargo ship.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yes, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
But I think our biggest risk to life and limb.
Here is cutting a tire on one of these rocks, that's.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Right, Yeah, it's pretty easy. One of the things that
you want in an off rudder, too, is a really
predictable accelerator pedal, so that you can feed in just
the right amount of throttle. You can feed in just
everything perfectly, and this really does that, even in hybrid mode.
It just gives you the torque that you need, and
it's very predictable.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I'm just in the passenger seat right now, but it
seems like a pretty easy vehicle to place.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah. I can see every corner of it. I can
see exactly where the back window is. I can see
the front corners perfectly. And then Toyota has lowered the
side glass too relative to the windshield, so I can
see out my door really well too.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Let's go up.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
This is giving climb this.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Okay, you might need to modify your settings.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Sure, Let's let's lock up the center diff.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Okay, I'll lock up the rear diff. A couple of buttons,
why not belt and suspenders.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
On a pair of sands and belts. Let's put it
in dirt. Okay, it doesn't have an air suspension, so
we're not lifting it. The ground clearance stays at eight
point seven inches no matter what you do, unless you
put larger tires on it. Now we're climbing this grade.
It's not having any trouble whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
No, that's super easy.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
There's some big rocks at the end of it. It
also has a big skin play up front too. All right,
this is a little more treacherous on the downslope, So
we're gonna put it in. Let's see how their hill
descent control works. Call it DAC crawl. So if we
hit the crawl button, we can adjust the max speed
that it's going to go. So let's go all the
way down to two. You can go as high as
(14:01):
eighteen as well.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
That seems so it's going to use the breaks.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
It's going to use the brakes to slow us down here.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, eighteen seems a little Yeah, it's a little aggressive.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh, and it's holding it right at two. Oh I
just saw three, but we're going back to two. Oh.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
It's just so easy.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
It takes all the thought out of it.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It's like an autonomous vehicle.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
All I have to do is steer and avoid the
really big ruds. Not exactly new technology, but adjusting it's cool.
Let's climb this little hill here. It looks like it's
pretty steep up top. So it's going to test the
breakover angle, which is actually better than the old land Cruiser. Right.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
It has the same approach angle as the old one,
but a better breakover angle.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, and on the same wheelbase. We're at the top
making a tight left. It's gonna lean a little back
into the crawl and just make this super easy on ourselves.
Park parking warning.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Rock ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Nice. Okay, that was easy.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It's it's been easy so far, which is good. Can
I take a Yeah, you want to try it? I
go watch the door slam.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Oh, there it is again.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I don't know what your Uber passenger rating is, but
mine's pretty high because I don't slam the doors, so
I'm not really even pushing. I'm not even slamming the
door that hard and it's making that noise.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, that's a great tip. By the way, don't slam
your Uber driver's door.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, you won't get a five star rating. That looks
a little That looks a little too eight me. Yeah,
it's a little narrow. Yeah. The electric assist allows this
four cylinder to bump up to four hundred and sixty
five pound feet of torque. But it does have a
really small battery and the pedal's nice.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
It is nice and it's very easy to modulate.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Oh there's another breakover angle test. There we go, No problem.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
I'm going to do it old style hill descent just
by breaking. That's a little bit more fun. But that
wasn't all that challenging.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I like that. There's no steering kickback, that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, you're not getting any weird kind of phases where
the steering goes light or it kicks back in your.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Hand, right. I haven't seen it snap once. And we're
going over stuff that's kicking the body around, for sure.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
But good tip off roading.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Do not hook your thumbs into the spokes of the
wheel like you might do on road, because if there
is kickback, to break your thumbs or at least give
you a little because that's.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Oh wow, we're getting a little crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
I think we are. I wouldn't go in there. Okay,
let me back.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You can turn around. Okay, there's a sign on the
tree that says wild.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
This is where that trail turned feature on the Bronco
would really help. Yeah, which is not making a fourteen
point turn here, try not to hit the tree.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
This is where spotters would help as well. Yeah, but
the plushness of the ride is really pretty sure. I'm
there's not even that much head toss, right, I'm not
getting thrown around that much. It's got all this initial compliance.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
Breakover angle over angle test pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
There it goes. I mean you can see the corner perfectly,
which have allowed you to avoid that tree. Very very
tight turning radius, which is nice. Hey, it really makes
everything seem pretty easy.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
I know, it really is easy. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
These mirrors are great because you can see both sides
of the car the whole way down.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
It really is good spotting.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
And well we have an inklinometer.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
There's a nice little inklinometer like the.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I think the really old landcruisers had that too.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
That's a great touch and nice. Okay, let's exit out
of here.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I haven't heard it scrape once.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Well, don't know if that's talent too soon.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I don't know if that's our driving talent or the
breakover angle on the ground clearance. Oh there it is.
There's the front nice.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Oh look at that.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Okay, so this front camera gives you kind of a
ghosted view of your front wheel angle.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Yeah, it's like the car is gone in front of
you and you just see the tires.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's wild. I don't want to spend too much time
looking at it, though, I.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Think you should drive those time with.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
No.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
It's really cool.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
I mean you have an onboard spotter. It kicks off
at about five miles an hour. Six miles an hour though.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Very cool because it figures if.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You're going that quickly spotter.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I think we decently challenged this thing and it came
through with flying colors. It did easy, did not break
a sweat. No, And like you said, it is extraordinarily
comfortable inside.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
I'm shocked at how comfortable it is. I've gone off
roading and stuff and just been made nausey because you
get thrown around so much. It's hard to believe that
the dimensions are so similar to the old land Cruiser,
because this feels so much tidier and so much smaller
when you're driving it. And some of that's a function
of the control feel and the lighter steering, but it
(19:15):
just feels way more manageable out here. And this is
not an off road course. It's designed for really wide vehicles,
ain't there.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
No, and you sit a little bit higher, it feels
like there's a much higher age point in this vehicle.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah, I think that's some of that's the lower glass
on the side windows. It's not quite the original range
rover where if you're driving down the road people could
see your hips, but at least people can see you
see your wallet.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
But incredibly comfortable, incredibly smooth, and at odds with the
tiny sound of the doors.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
I think the ride refinement is extraordinary. It is.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's shocking, very fun I mean, this is cool, the
fact that this can do all this without really breaking
a sweat and perform all the functions in need of
a regular sort of family vehicle without paying much price
for it.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
On the road, it's pretty nice on the road. And
you were mentioning that the steering doesn't kick you back here,
which usually means that the steering is completely aloof and
numb on road, and it's not. It's pretty responsive. It's
easy to drive in the highway, it's super easy to
keep in your lane, works really well. I always feel
like when I can't find my way out of one
of these places, it's like a little.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Blair Witch Project.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Just go to the cottage at the back of the like,
I'm pretty sure we just passed that lake. We crossed
over that like seven times for some reason.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Tell you that.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Note what they're doing off road, executing something like this
that has such a dual nature.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
It's pretty spectacular.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
This is quickly going to turn into a lost scenario
where we find out we've died in her in this
off the road park for the rest of our existence.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, when we get out of here, it'll be twenty
sixty three.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And there'll still be a Toyota land Cruiser.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
This will have gone up in value tremendously.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Oh, that looks like an exit.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I see the ramshackle buildings. I see the corrugated tin hunts.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
We didn't die. No, we're back among the living.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Well, we still don't know what year.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
It is.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
All right, we made it good good. That was fun.
It was fun. It was surprisingly easy, I know.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I mean we didn't go up the eighty five percent grades.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
No, we didn't do anything too crazy, but we did
test out the ground clearance and the breakover angle and
the approach angle and the departure angle.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And you know, it's also incredible is how quiet this
thing is. Everything has a great kind of veneer of refinement.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You don't hear the structure creaking at all, not or
any of that. You don't hear the suspension moving around.
A lot of off roaders, you just constantly hear the
suspension moving around.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It felt like there was no torsional weirdness. Good stuff,
Bank in park.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
All right. Cool.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
We may have made it out of the sand pit,
but we aren't out of the woods yet with this
new land Cruiser.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Luckily.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
After the break, we're sitting down with Toyota's Marcus Umwalf
to answer our lingering questions about the truck. Welcome back
to car and drivers into Cars.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
To answer some of our lingering questions, we're joined today
by Marcus Umlauf, Toyota's general manager in charge of truck strategy.
That means Marcus looks over the Tundra and Tacoma pickups,
the Sequoia, the Forerunner, and the land Cruiser subs. If
it's body on frame and it's a Toyota, Marcus is
responsible for it. An avid off roader, Marcus developed Toyota
racing development vehicles in Australia before making the move to
the United States. Welcome to into cars.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Marcus, Hey, Tony, You've great to be here.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So Marcus has head of strategy for Toyota Truck. Let's
talk a little bit about land cruiser strategy. While the
lex six hundred continues on the three hundred series version
of TGAF, this is only two fifty. It's last of
luxury oriented. So why did you guys make that switch
and put the land crews around two fifty and Stata
(23:12):
three hundred.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
It's a really luxurious position to be in to say,
we've got a lot of choices, and a lot of
this came from the new platform. So as we developed
the new F one platform, this is the first time
I've been able to come up with a platform for
all of our trucks at the same time and really
considering like how would this execute as a full size pickup,
as a mid sized pickup, as a Lexus product, or
a Toyder product. And I think being able to start
(23:35):
with that clean sheet of saying what should that platform
be that's going to serve all of these different purposes,
it was a really good opportunity. Stepping back from there,
we now have a bunch of tools, so we say, okay,
so I mean the platform lead was three hundred series Lancers,
so that was the first vehicle on the platform, very
closely followed by Tundra. We had Sequoya LX really surrounding
(23:55):
out that full size execution on that platform. Then we said, okay,
how do we do a slightly smaller version of that
two fifty series was a case of saying and the
way I best sort of framed this is we have
global vehicle with lan Cruiser, and we have a lot
of regional vehicles, so let's say Sequoia forur Runner, they
are very let's call it North American specific. So we've
(24:16):
got the benefit here of saying, hey, we've got a
global truck in land Cruiser, we also have a full
size suv in Sequoia, and now for the first time,
Sequoia gets a lot of the benefits of three hundred
series land Cruiser already built into the truck, but at
a scale it really is for the US market. So
it was a chance and from the very outset of saying, look,
what should lan Cruise be, how do we take lan
Cruiser back to its origins? And really the LC two
(24:38):
fifty is really ideally where that should be.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I do a follow up question to that, Marcus, was
there any internal concern about moving from an eight to
a four and going lower in price and changing the
sort of brand position and aligning it more with Tacoma
forour runner. Did anybody feel like they were devaluing the vehicle?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
I don't think so, and I think it at its
very simplest, it's recognizing who the land Cruiser customers really are.
I mean lank Cruise, who has been a name plate
that has been around for so long. People that know
land Cruiser love land Cruiser, and frankly, I mean lank
Cruiser had really started to drift to become something that
really wasn't the origins of lan Cruiser. I mean, we
were selling a handful of equals a year. It was
(25:20):
a fantastic truck, but it was to a very small
part of the market. And so how do we take
it back to where it should be. We want to
be able to have a truck that's more accessible for
price point, a truck that has the right spec for
people in terms of what they actually want to do
with the land Cruiser, and so it was a great
opportunity for us to bring that back so.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Marcus, now that the land Cruiser has moved down to
price point, it moves a little closer to four Runner.
So how does the land Cruiser fit into the lineup
with the newly announced for Runner.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
These are two tools to compete in one really competitive segment.
So if I looked about historically, we had four Runner,
which was one tool to compete against everything the rugged
suv space, I mean it's super competitive, super passionate, there's
some great product there, and we had one tool to
compete there. It was very intentional to say, if we
have two tools, how do they both play there? So
(26:07):
we have the global tool with land Cruiser, which has
the heritage, it's more boxy, it's more rugged, it really
has that global DNA. And then how do we take
four Runner back to be Also for Runner is really
a story of return to its roots. If we look
at first and second gen four Runner, it used to
be tied to the pickup truck, so it's a little cheekyer,
it's a little sportier. It was important to us to
say they have to have their own role. So four
(26:29):
Runner has got a wider range of powertrains, so it
really is the high volume, broader coverage type vehicle, which
is our regional truck. I mean it very much is
a North American truck. We then have the global truck,
which is so globally renowned, but it's a simpler strategy.
So it's really a case of if you want a
land Cruiser, you buy a land Cruiser. Four Runner really
appeals to a whole bunch of other people, But at
(26:50):
the end of the day, I think it's going to
boil down to choice. People just have two great products
that they can really choose which is the best fit
for them.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
So it's our understanding that Toyota, and I don't know
a few can confirm or deny this while still keeping
your job. Has an internal measure for our durability that
has three categories. Cars are the first category as the
least rugged and durable. The second category is a higher
level up for most of the truck line, and the
highest level the most durable third tier with something like
(27:18):
a ten year lifespan of never being driven on paved road.
Does the land crews are still abide by that In
this two point fifty iteration.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
Eighty first and foremost, A really love my job, so
I'm not going to do anything like that. So everything
I came to keep my job. But Link Cruiser is
a fascinating nine plate and without going on too much
of a dangent, there is a huge amount of respect
for it and the huge amount of honestly responsibility to
protect what that is. And so I think you're exactly
rought that there were levels of durability and severity that
(27:50):
all of it vehicles attested to. As you can imagine,
we have globally so much variation in terms of markets,
in terms of usage, in terms of expectation, and vehicles
need to be developed appropriate. What a best sum up
with lan Cruiser is we understand the customer really well
and we make sure that land Cruiser is a lan Cruiser.
And so when it comes to specifications and things like that,
(28:10):
it's not as simple as saying this must survive ten years.
It must say, okay, how is the customer using this
truck and then what is their expectation to survive? So
when we look at severity the way that we rate severity,
there's so many different things. Is it about heat, is
it about dust? Is it about water? Is it about
how rough that road is? And we talk about Toyter's
(28:31):
renowned for Genji gemboots, So go and see and very
much this is almost the epitome of You've got to
go and see it. You've got to go and talk
to these customers. You've got to be in a crocodile
infested river in Australia. You've got to be in a
mind sight somewhere. You're going to be sort of in
the middle of this engine somewhere to really understand how
are people using these vehicles. And it's not a case
of saying, here's just one test that doesn't it's a
(28:51):
case of saying, if I know how the customer is
using this and their expectation to it's not just it'll
get me there, but it will get me back and
it's easy to repair that it's reliable that if that
really is the core tenet, If we know what they
do and we protect that someone can trust the land
Cruizer to do it, That's really what it boils down to.
I'm not dodging the question there as opposed to as
(29:12):
much as it's a case of saying, there's so many layers.
What we just need to do is make sure that
we can actually test to that we might create a
new test of saying, hey, we just saw that someone
in a mind side in Australia is basically catching all
of this mud underneath this truck and it's pulling wiring
harnesses off. How do we make sure that we test
for that? And so it's really a case of saying,
what's the real world test, not necessarily just the standardized
(29:32):
test that would be run.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Can you talk about the decision to kill the land
Cruiser in twenty twenty one, Why not continue to build
it until the new one came out? Did you have
to kill it to relaunch it? What was the story there?
Because Alex came out pretty quickly, it did.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
And Tony, we didn't kill land Cruiser. Lan Cruiser had
little pause until it was ready to come back, and
that's really how it played out. And a lot of
it was Cadencer platform. So as that full sized platform
went to three hundred series, we see how two hundred
series stopped. So we had to cease with production of
two hundred series as it rolled out there, it was
really Sequoia was our next product which was coming to
fit into that space. So full sized body on frame,
(30:06):
rugged suv. We now have the benefits of that three
hundred series development Sequoya comes out there. I think a
lot of what people couldn't see coming was like, don't worry,
we have an answer, and I'll tell you a funny story.
I was. I was speaking at the land Cruise in museum,
and so at the time, we had killed land Cruiser,
and I basically said, you're either the bravest guy or
the dumbest guy to turn up into a whole audience
of Lanceruise enthusiasts after killing the land Cruiser, but I
(30:29):
couldn't tell them what was coming, And knowing full will
that Lane Cruiser was coming back in the form that
it really should be in for the US market was
really exciting, and so I'd sort of called it. It
was really a pause until the product Cadence could actually
get it back into there. But it was really a
pause rather than the death.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
Marcus, He's spoken a little bit about how Toyota adapts
different cars and different platforms, different trucks to different environments
in different countries and different use cases.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Can you talk a.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Little bit about how Australia is different from the US
in terms of how they use their vehicles. What is
the off running culture, Like I mean is there a
lot of cosplay where you know, people get the most
rugged g wagon or whatever they can and just drive
it to aroin or whatever.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
In the US, absolutely, so probably the number one thing
in Australia is you assume that everything's going to kill you.
So if you start with that assumption, then everything exactly,
so you sort of start with that assumption.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
The aroline in Australia is legal.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
The fascinating thing about the Australian market and this is why,
I mean, I've got a lot of Australian experience, but
here permanently in the US, because there is so many
similarities in terms of the lost style and what people
do with their trucks and SUVs is very similar. So
people really want to enable a loft style with this.
So whether it's their pickup trucks, whether it's their SUVs,
they want to be able to tow, they haul, They
(31:55):
use it for vacation, they use it for off roading.
So there's a huge recreational cult. There's also a very
practical culture as well that these are a tool of
trade for many people, and so I think there's a
lot of similarities in how people use it or why
they want to use it. The difference has really probably
come in into the environment and just how far. The
biggest difference that I draw here is it's really hard
(32:17):
to find two gas stations in the US that are
all that far away from each other. You might struggle
to find maybe one hundred miles or something like that.
These place is in Australia where you will actually go
on travel and you have to carry extra fuel because
it is the distance is too much. So a lot
of it is the distance, it's the remote nature and
frankly the fact that I mean, if you do get
stuck out there, you die. It's a pretty remote and
(32:38):
dangerous place to be. But the reason why people are
doing is really similar.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Marcus. How long are we going to see barty on
frame vehicles in the mass market? Is it going to
be like the old nine to eleven story where the
line just goes on and on and on and on
and on and on forever. And yeah, I guess if
you make them heavy enough they escape some regulations too.
So as the future really break for body on frame
vehicles at Toyota.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
So, Donny, I'd get a little pilosophical with you and say,
what is body on frame and it's really a case
of you're marrying a platform with a different upper body.
And when we actually look at even where a lot
of dedicated evs have gone, they've got to skateboard that
marry with an upper body. It's really more about what's
the evolution of platforms that you can electrify a platform
you can still have the ruggedness and the strength that
(33:21):
you can go off roading, that you can actually still
have a thirteen twelve thousand pound towing capacity, you still
can haul. So I think it's going to be how
do you have platforms that evolve to be able to
do that? But I think necessarily it's not a case
of body on frame evolution. It's really a case of
how do you marry a platform with an upper body
in a smart way?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Well, that's interesting, and I think you're going to have
to sell the customers on that because they expect body
on frame to look a certain way. And there's also
a theory that American cars were never comfortable not being
body on frame. That's why Americans love body on frame.
So basically, you know, a Catillac Escalade is very close
to a seventies car. I mean it's a V eight
and a body on frame. So that's an Americans are
very comfortable with an understand So even when it evolves,
(34:03):
I think you're going to have to commence customers for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
For sure, and at the end of the day, I'd
also argue I think there's a large group of customers
that just want to have the right end product. I
think there's a lot of enthusiasts that understand the architecture
of the vehicle. There's a lot of others that probably
come along and say, does it have the performance, does
it have the strength, does have the space? I think
if you could execute a really good product for the customer,
whether it's an suv or a pickup truck, and you've
(34:27):
got a slightly different architecture, sure you're going to have
some people that will sort of debate how you got there.
There's also a lot of people if you can do
it right and you don't make them compromise, then I
think they're really going to judge the end product and
how that comes out.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Marcus, I hear you have a seventy two scout project.
How's that coming along? What can you tell us about that?
So you're not going to give me a hard time?
For it not being a Twitter. Ok, there's a new
Scout coming too, but what do they say.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
About the forbidden?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
For it?
Speaker 4 (34:53):
When you grow up in a world of when there's
lankers is everywhere, and then you come to the US
and you find something new and unique, it's pretty exciting
and and actually a little bit of the backstory is
our first family tractor in Australia was a nineteen thirty
nine International h Model and so I had an infinity.
I said, hang on, so he's a really cool truck.
Buy a tractor company that I have an affinity too,
(35:13):
So I had to buy it. So this was a
COVID project. The price was right, and I completely undersold
the amount of time to my wife it was going
to take to work on it. But it it's been
a great project with my boys to really sort of
teach a sixteen year old here a cobrette works and
rebuild a cabaretta and a murder and I just love
the simplicity of something designed by a tractor company. It
had a one ninety six and I got a three
(35:35):
forty five, And literally the one ninety six is just
half of a three ninety two. So the vel train
comes across. I mean they just left four cylinders off.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
So oh yeah, it had that giant four cylinder engine.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Absolutely, so I got it with that. But it's literally
half a V eight, so it's you can use so
many parts, so anyway without geeking out, I just love
the practicality of a tractor company that says, when you
use the same parts, we'll just build four cylinders and
V eights and it's yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Necessity, yeah, absolutely, just like Lamborghini. My favorite design element
inside is that the land Cruiser says Toyota written out
in script instead of having the Toyota badge inside on
the airbag hub. So I saw that and I was like, yes,
they got it right, they know what That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
That's awesome. I'll got to tell you, Tony. I was
really excited when I saw the very first concept sketch
with Kevin Hunt and the Keelty team little side story.
The thing that's really exciting is the concept and what
came out the other side are so similar. So sometimes
when you actually put it through the big sausage making machine,
I mean, things really get diluted. You lose a lot
of the emotion and passion. But when I very first
(36:37):
saw that, I'm going, I can see FJ sixty two,
I can see FJA eighty and this is really at
the height of when everyone's paying way too much money
for ninety seven Triple Lock eighty series. During Covide, it
was just cool to actually see the truck and go.
It's super modern, but basically it totally without trying to
be a retro ripoff, without trying to be the old
land cruisers. It still has the DNA of land cruiser
(36:59):
and as much you just say it must you engineer it.
It's really cool and you sort of see a bit
of that too.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
It seems like from the outside that you guys have
an easier time slipping through truck designs like the FJ
Cruiser that went from concept to production and not that
much was changed. But I don't necessarily see that in
the cars, but the trucks they seem to get through
unchanged from the original designs, which is really cool.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
We're very, very lucky, especially in the US, where I
mean truck is so unique to the US market. We've
got such a fantastic team between you put Beach and
an Abba.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Well, next time you're in ann Arbor, at the R
and D facility.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
We're right off the street, So yeah, come have lunch
with us. We'll bother you with a lot of annoying,
nitty gritty questions about.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
It's a date.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Thanks Marcus, Thank you, Thanks Chris.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That interview was brought to you by eBay Motors. Visit
ebaymotors dot com for more.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Car friends. The Toygotta Land Cruisers Resurrection is a less expensive,
off road focused suv strikes me as a good idea.
The new land Cruiser proved itself off road and handled
everything we threw at it. The old land Cruiser had
priced itself out of relevance. Bringing the land Cruiser back
will undoubtedly prove to be a wise move for Toyota.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Undoubtedly, But I missed the old one. I liked.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
It's under the radar luxury. We've already got a Forerunner.
Why do we need this thing?
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Well, you can still get it as a Lexus.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I guess yeah, but I don't want the Lexus.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
For more on the new Toyota land Cruiser, visit carndriver
dot com and be sure to pick up the latest
issue of Car and Driver magazine. Well, Eddie, that's a
wrap on the first season of Car and Drivers Into Cars,
we got to experience some seriously interesting and compelling new
vehicles over the last six episodes, from the Lamborghini uricon
Strado to the most expensive Cadillac ever to Toyota's reimagined
(38:43):
land Cruiser.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
We hope that you had fun riding along with us
and learning from the folks who helped create the cars.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Each week prought surprises in a few laughs.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to rate and
review wherever you listen to podcasts, and stay tuned for
season two.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Car and Drivers Into Cars is a production of Car
and Driver in iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio. Our show is hosted
by Eddie Alterman and myself Tony Kiroga. Our executive producer
is Matt Romano. Our EP of Post Production is Matt Stillo.
Our supervising producer is Sierra Kaiser. This show was edited
by Sierra Spreen special thanks to our location sound recordist
Matthew Cisco. Thanks for listening.
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