FJ,son of…Toyota Landcrusier

Posted: December 18th, 2005 | Author: Michael R. Murphy | Filed under: General | No Comments »

The Toyota Landcruiser of the 70’s and 80’s is possibly one of my all time favorite trucks,probably followed closely by the old school Jeep Wagoneer (you know the one I’m talking about). They’re big,boxy,and beautiful. The kind you see in L.L. Bean catalogs and in rural New England driven by bearded,wool-clad curmudgeons.

When I saw the picture in Forbes I knew right away what it was. It’s the 2007 Toyota FJ Cruiser. Toyota’s VP of marketing says the idea is to “…step back toward the heritage of Toyota with the old FJ40 and the heritage of the original SUV”. It looks like Toyota will continue to sell the Land Cruiser as we’ve known it lately,in all it’s massive luxuriousness. It’s departed so far from it’s roots that it’s even sold under Lexus branding as the LX. That’s about as far from a working truck as you can get.

Automobile magazine gives it great reviews,although they do lament that it doesn’s have the removable roof sections that the original Cruiser did. The standard V6 version will have 245hp and 282lb-ft of torque which is higher than the competition offered by Jeep in their Wrangler Rubicon package but slightly short of the Nissan XTerra. It should also check in between 25 to 30k,depending on the trimmings.

It’s definitely different than anything out there now but I like it. There are clearly design elements taken from the original which allowed me to recognize it immediately. But as the article mentions,Toyota opted not to be too true and jump on the retro bandwagon that VW did with the new Beetle and Ford has with the Thunderbird. I like both of those cars as well. I’ve always liked the fit,finish,and reliability of Toyota so hopefully my Audi will make it to 2007 so I can take a serious look at the new FJ.

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