REVEALED! 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser Is Cool, Affordable, Yet Honors the Original | Car and Driver

I'm Dan Edmonds, and this is the new 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser. Yes, it's back after a very short three-year absence. If you ever thought it was really going away, well, you don't know Land Cruiser fans. They love this vehicle. Now, are they going to love this one? I think so, because there's a lot about it that is quite different in a good way from the Land Cruiser that we've known over the last few years. So if it seems like this Land Cruiser is smaller than the last one, it is, but it's not as drastic a difference as you might think. I mean, the wheelbase between the front and rear wheels is exactly the same at 112.2 inches. The overall length from nose to tail is only about an inch and a half shorter. At the roof here, it's only about three-quarters of an inch shorter. This width from fender to fender, 78 inches. It's the same as a 200 Series, but you can see how much more sculpting there is here. This is really just a fender flare. The actual body is much narrower, and it gives this a much lighter, more, well, sporty look. And I really do like it a lot because, you know, the track width is quite a bit wider than, like, a 4Runner, for example. And these are 18-inch tires and wheels. They're 33 inches tall, which is really nice. Inside, we have a double wishbone suspension, you know, with a high mount upper arm, coilovers. They are twin-tube, so if anybody wants to do mods, they don't have to feel bad about throwing away expensive hardware. In the back, it's got a five-link solid axle. As it had before, it's configured a little bit differently with the shocks mounting a different way than they have in the past. But all in all, this is a very capable and moddable-looking machine, and I think that's really great. And another thing that's great about this is it's affordable by mere mortals. You know, they haven't said the exact price, but they're saying mid-50s. This one has a few options, so we might be looking at 60 right here, give or take. If you wanted to buy a Land Cruiser and you wanted to take it off-road, you probably couldn't afford a new one and you had to wait till you could buy a used one that was 10 years old. And I think that makes it a better off-road vehicle because it's much less likely to be a mall wagon. No matter which trim level you get, they're all powered by the 2.4-liter turbocharged i-Force Hybrid Max engine. And I may have gotten those words in the wrong order, but it's a 2.4-liter turbo engine with a hybrid electric motor mounted between the engine and the eight-speed transmission. It makes 326 horsepower, 465 pound-feet of torque, and can tow 6,000 pounds. So that is a really nice engine. It's not the same as the one in the GX550, but I think that's part of the reason why this is going to cost less and deliver pretty good fuel economy. They haven't told us what it is yet, but I'm expecting good things, especially compared to 12, 13, whatever it was last time out. So there are three grades for the new Land Cruiser. This is the base model called 1958 Land Cruiser. The volume model is simply called Land Cruiser. And the top dog is called First Edition, and they're limiting that to 5,000 units, which is interesting because they've never sold 5,000 units in the last two decades. So that tells you that they're expecting a lot more people to fall in love with the new Land Cruiser. So the base model, what's different about it? Well, the tires are a little smaller. They're 245s instead of 265. That makes them 32 inches tall instead of 33. It has these round heritage headlights, which are pretty cool. A lot of stuff's unpainted, but this is the one that's going to cost about $55,000. All they're saying is mid-50s, so we'll have to guess what that means, but probably means that. So this is the 1958 Land Cruiser base model, so named because that's when the first Land Cruisers were sold in the United States. And right away, I like these cloth seats. I had an 80 Series Land Cruiser that I bought on the cheap, and it had cloth seats. So I actually think it's pretty neat. But what else is different about this base model? Well, this screen is smaller. You can see where there's room for the larger one that the other grades have. They all have full-time four-wheel drive, which means all four wheels are driving the car all the time, but there is a center differential. It's a Torsen differential, and this button right here will lock it when you go off-road. And then if you need to lock the rear diff, there's a button for that too right here, and all Land Cruisers have all of that. What this doesn't have in terms of off-road gear is the front sway bar disconnect or anti-roll bar disconnect, if you will, and, you know, that's not going to be something that everybody needs or wants. And so really, this base model is a pretty good place to start if you want to do a build and save some money on the front end to use to buy suspension or other upgrades. Like a lot of elements on the new Land Cruiser, the return to a simpler and less costly approach has a lot of appeal. It certainly has brought the price back down to earth, and that's no bad thing. And who can argue with a Land Cruiser that's bound to get decent fuel economy? As for the inevitable outrage of the purists, no more than 4,000 of them laid their money on the table each year over the last decade or so. It's pretty clear the demand for a bloated and expensive Land Cruiser barely existed. This new direction is bound to get more of them in the hands of those that always wanted one, and we're looking forward to seeing some brand new examples out on the trails.