Workhorse just keeps on truckin’

The LandCruiser four-door ute is a 21st century motoring enigma – an unsophisticated work truck with premium price tag and cult-like following.

It appears the diesel V8 version of the 70 Series will not be around for much longer, its place to be taken by a four-cylinder, automatic version (apparently that’s not a bad thing, if you can get behind the wheel).

Yet, there’s the mystery of how Toyota managed to keep selling an old-fashioned V8, live axle truck for around $100,000 at some dealers – a ute with a bare modicum of modern comfort, convenience or safety features. Sure, it’s a tough machine with tough chassis and tough mechanicals but it’s also a cramped ute with bare-bones interior and engineering design, despite some upgrades, close on 40 years old. Some call that a heritage legacy.

The 2024 ’Cruisers have some refreshed style: a bit tidier, a bit retro in part – with handsome 16-inch alloy wheels and reworked grille, headlights and bonnet. There’s a 6.7-inch multimedia system with hands-free smartphone pairing and a new instrument cluster.

The touch screen looks old-school and isn’t the easiest to navigate.

Retro-inspired instruments are difficult to read but augmented by a digital road speed read-out.

A driver sits high and handsome in an old-fashion seat (there’s no left arm rest but then again, in the V8 manual, there’s a bit of shifting through the five-speed gearbox) and controls and pedals need a firm hand or foot.

Among the left-outs (items to be found in $30,000 cars), there’s no remote control for mirrors, no vanity mirror for the passenger, one faraway cup holder,  and auto-down on the window for the driver only. Not much of this may  worry ’Cruiser converts and, granted,  this is no toy four-wheel drive. In many ways, it’s fun (for a bit) to go back to old-school driving.

But add all the misses to a relatively small cabin for a bulky and expensive ute and it’s not hard to see why bigger, more sophisticated and generally more comfortable American utes such as the Ram, Ford 150 and Chevrolet Silverados have found favour with tradespeople and folk towing big vans.

Sure, most of those Americans cost a little more but are all fresher in design and by the time the ’Cruiser was brought up to speed with the likes of new seats, plusher trim and a bigger, better infotainment system, a wider rear track to match the front and more, cost differences would close up.

The 70 Series LandCruiser is a very good off-road machine. Decent ground clearance, excellent low-speed gearing, loads of low-down torque from the 4.5-litre V8, plus front and rear differential locks make it a back-track warrior (a leaner size makes it a winner in the scrub over bulked-up Yanks). It steers and rides the bitumen reasonably well and has the advantage, particularly with a 40-year-old heritage, of being known and fixable in remote outposts. A great farm ute.

It’s just that, even with its limited global market, this ’Cruiser’s surely paid its way and surely Toyota has a few odds and ends from its vast model range to brighten it up.

Bring on the American-built and targeted Toyota Tundra: a refined load hauler being evaluated for Australia.

PS: Toyota dropped the ’Cruiser’s V8 option just prior to publication, though the four-cylinder version will have just as  many foibles.