The last one started at damn-near 90 grand. It came with three leather-trimmed rows of seats, a JBL premium audio system, cooled power front buckets, and just about everything its Lexus sibling offered, with extra goodies like a rear-seat entertainment system available as optional extras. A luxury limo in everything but badging. That is the Land Cruiser Americans have known for 20-plus years. But it is not the one they will be able to buy next year.
Read the full story on the 2024 Land Cruiser.
For 2024, the Land Cruiser is swapping segments. Its sibling is no longer the opulent Lexus LX—now available with rear recliners—but the Lexus GX, which comes with 33-inch tires. Its global brethren are no longer the luxury trucks the U.S. State Department up-armors for dangerous posts, but the rural ambulances used in Costa Rica. The smaller Land Cruiser Prado—which will be called only "Land Cruiser" here—has long been known not for being the nicest truck on Earth, but the toughest.
It comes with manual fabric seats standard. The base audio system is a six-speaker affair more similar to the Tacoma's than the 200 Series. Leather and a JBL system are optional, sure, but they're also optional in the Taco. No one is calling that a luxury truck. Nor will they the Land Cruiser, with its chunky interior and simple trimmings. It will never be mistaken for its Lexus cousin, and that's on purpose.
"[We’re] kind of moving away from the last gen that had a much more luxury look and feel to it, similar to what Lexus was offering at the time,” Erin Doughty, from the Land Cruiser's vehicle marketing & communications team, told Road & Track.
She said that the new model is not intended to look or feel like the GX, or any other Lexus for that matter. That's why the design is so linked to Land Cruiser heritage, and that's why the interior is a departure from previous Cruisers.
“I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to crawl around it yet, but this screams ‘Toyota’ to me," she said.
Mack Hogan previously served as the reviews editor for Road & Track. He founded the automotive reviews section of CNBC during his sophomore year of college and has been writing about cars ever since.
