Why did the owners allow their Land Cruisers to rot away?
This is the question we want to ask them and we are quite sure their answer will be ‘too old’ and ‘no spare parts’ at the time of being left idle. We think it more to do with their plantation/business success and the arrival shiny new 4×4’s that provided better comfort and features.
Did you know that the Toyota Land Cruiser almost never got produced because Toyota designer Kazuo Morohoshi’s initial version which was codenamed the B-85 and was developed in the early ‘1950s, right after WW2 looked too much like the Willys Jeep for and was considered to be a copyright infringement.
Meanwhile, it was a well known fact that Toyota’s inspiration for the model had been the humble Jeep all along.
Interestingly it was not until the more civilian looking FJ25 was put on the market in 1959 that Toyota could take its 4×4 vehicle to the American and also global market place. Soon after Land Cruisers were everywhere, even invading the African continent where the Land Rover had been dominant since WW2.
In 1960 the 20 Series Land Cruisers were replaced by the 40 Series (meanwhile, 70 years on there are still being sold in Australia), and it was here that Toyota established themselves as leaders in the 4×4 market.
The 40 Series, despite improving on the now traditional Land Cruisers styling, also expanded the range of available body shapes in an effort to corner various sectors of the growing commercial off-road market.
Today you have the all new 2022 model Land Cruiser 300 Series which is a luxury 4×4 challenging BMW and Mercedes.
