Beloved Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series is back, for those who can wait
Dealers won’t say how long, but it will likely take between 12 and 24 months to get a Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series delivered. True believers are willing to bide their time in anticipation.
I’m looking at a small grey rectangle where a clock should be. Not a good clock, just one of those cheap, grey and black 1980s-era clocks that tell the time in the most basic way possible and were superseded in the 1990s when it became cheaper to make better versions.
And yet, despite its simplicity and the fact it probably only costs a few cents to make, Toyota decided to pull it out of the vehicle I’m sitting in and leave a blank grey rectangle in the middle of the dashboard instead. Because of cost savings.
Normally that would be OK, given the vehicle I’m sitting in is an incredibly humble, working-class ute. So simple and unpretentious it still has wind-up windows (remember those?). But it’s not okay because I know how much this vehicle costs and it beggars belief that Toyota decided that this car should do without a 50-cent clock (or whatever its cost, it might be a whole dollar).
The vehicle in question is the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series ute and this clock-less machine costs (I hope you’re sitting down) $76,800. No, that isn’t a typo or a mistake, this simplistic, workhorse ute costs more than $75k.
If you want the one with the clock, you’ll need to spend another $2000.
Welcome to the strange, almost inexplicable world of the 70 Series LandCruiser.
If you’re not one of the many, many enthusiasts who worship this strange truck, you may not have heard of the 70 Series, but you’ve definitely seen one. These are the chunky utes that rural police, firefighters and National Parks use to go anywhere, any time. There are also the utes you’ll see driving around town covered in dust with elaborate camping facilities grafted on the back and mast-like antenna sprouting from all sides.
The 70 Series is a particular kind of vehicle for a particular kind of person. The kind of person who doesn’t mind paying more than $75k to not know what the time is. The kind of person that thinks power windows are a curse of modern convenience. The kind of person that wants to see the Australian outback but only if they can spend days driving themselves there.
They’re also the kind of people that will wait for their 70 Series, because this is one of the most in-demand cars in Australia today. You can get some Ferraris faster than you can take delivery of a brand-new 70 Series. At one point in the not-too-distant past, Toyota dealers were advertising a waiting period of between “four years and never” to get a 70 Series delivered.
Infinity is a very long time to be patient.
So what makes the 70 Series worth such demand and loyalty from customers? Certainly not the standard-equipment list. No, you buy a 70 Series not because of what it comes with, but because of where it can take you.
For clarity, the 70 Series is actually four different variants, an SUV-style Wagon (also known as the 76 Series), the iconic Troop Carrier (codename 78 Series) and both a single cab and double cab chassis ute (referred to as the 79 Series). While they have different bodies on top, underneath they’re the same car and thus known collectively as “the 70 Series” to all who love them.
What they all share is serious off-road ability; these are hardcore, rugged and capable machines designed specifically for when the going gets tough. So much so that when the going is easy, such as driving down a freeway, they are actually borderline terrible to drive. Cruising at 100km/h in the 70 Series requires a steady hand and concentration, as they want to sway across the road and are easily unsettled by passing trucks. Around town, the steering is slow and the turning circle is only slightly better than the QE2.
But get it onto dirt, gravel, mud, sand or some other loose surface and the 70 Series is in its element. Toyota Australia is lucky to have a man named Michael Scott (no, not the one from The Office) who is part of its local development team and has obtained the highest rank of off-roading certification that Toyota Motor Corporation offers. In fact, he’s the only non-Japanese employee with the honour.
Scott took us for a drive in the 76 Series and demonstrated just how unbelievably capable it is, simply by driving up a rocky hill and down again. There was no road and no trail in front of him, he simply pointed the LandCruiser at a hill and drove up it. At one point we sat facing rocks on three sides and a steep incline behind us, Scott simply turned right, we clambered over the rocks and then down the side of a huge boulder and back to flat ground. Remarkable.
You can go a long way in 1300km between stops, which really underlines what the 70 Series is all about.
Even more remarkable is how little has changed underneath since the 70 Series first launched in 1984. For 2024, it has had its biggest overhaul ever, introducing a new-look front-end design, complete with LED headlights, and under the bonnet there’s now a 2.8-litre four-cylinder diesel engine and six-speed automatic transmission.
This will sit alongside the existing 4.5-litre V8 turbo diesel and five-speed manual transmission that has served the 70 Series range so well and is so beloved by buyers. It’s so well liked that Toyota has decided to stop taking orders for it, at least until it can reduce the waiting list to some time less than never (officially Toyota won’t say how long it is but it’s rumoured to be between 12 and 24 months).
Which means those who want a 70 Series will need to take a chance on the new four cylinder. That may sound like a big step down, given it’s half the cylinders, but it actually has just as much power (150kW) and more torque (500Nm vs 430Nm) than the V8. Not only that, it also uses less fuel and has the same size tank (a massive 130 litres), which means it has more than 100km of extra driving range (more than 1300km, in theory).
You can go a long way in 1300km between stops, which really underlines what the 70 Series is all about. It may be bizarrely expensive for what it has in terms of equipment, but its ability to take you wherever you want to go in the wilderness is what makes it special.
After all, time tends to stop when you’re camping under the stars in Australia’s remarkable landscape, so you don’t really need a clock anyway…
