If Your Life Depended On It: Toyota Hilux (Tacoma) or Land Rover Defender?

If Your Life Depended On It: Toyota Hilux (Tacoma) or Land Rover Defender?

  • Total voters
    98
I've given it some thought, and my vote went to the Hilux. For one, you cannot get a Defender in the States, which puts it out of reach for me. Secondly, if I were in an extreme situation, i would have a modified truck, like the Arctic Truck modifications, making it more visually appealing to me, and I have to think about long term reliability and the ability to run no matter what quality of gasoline is put in the tank.

The Defender is cool, by far. But I think, if I had the option, and I walked into a dealership with my own money, I'd be ringing up Arctic Trucks and get a Hilux through them.
 
thedguy said:
The only reason why I Toyota isn't the top is because we have the Jeep here in the US. You ask any random person what they think is a great vehicle for off-roading here and they will mostly like say a Jeep.

The Land cruiser doesn't surprise me one bit, I've heard that where land rovers pretty much owned Australia 40 years ago, now it's over 90% Land Cruisers when it comes to 4x4's.
Click to expand...

I live in Northwest Ohio, near Toledo, which is were Jeeps are built, and I see a ton of these vehicles everywhere. They are good off-road, no doubt, but having seen both Toyota and Jeep trucks, I think at the time being, I would prefer Toyota.
 
I would take an old Hilux over a Defender just because I believe they are more reliable/indestructible. If it had to be a new one then I would probably go the other way.
 
depends on enviroment, if i actually had to do hardcore off-roading i'd trust the Defender, if i just really needed to get somewhere without breaking down i would trust the Hilux
 
Only one way to truly find out....Anyone fancy a trip up north?

and I went for the Defender, its very proven to be a tough bit of kit and can be fixed easily as its very simple
 
I'm gonna have to go with the Toyota, just because of the reliability.
I love them both, but The toyota has so much more potential.
I might have had to shoot myself for this desition but.... oh well
 
The defender is apart from its name the most unsafe car there is right after the Landwind...
Stay away, it flipped during the Elk Test and stops from 100 km/h in 55 meters...
 
I'd have the Land Rover Defender.

For one, I suspect it's a shade better offroad. I know it will be less reliable, but I have heard anecdotes about British Army engineers fixing broken Defenders with little more than a rock and some spit. Plus the stat that 75% of all Defenders ever made are still running - fairly impressive bearing in mind when they were first made.

If nothing else, I like the look of the Defender more, too.
 
Toyota, i've seen what our current toyota 4wd (prado) can do and what toyota did with that car seems to be good off road so i'd assume the hilux is no different
 
The Chad said:
I think it should be noted that the BBC chose the Toyota for this mission on the Polar Challenge. That does say something, though I'm not entirely sure what.
Click to expand...

It says Toyota wanted the good press is what it says
 
From personal experience, I know Toyota's are very reliable. After watching the Polar Challenge, I'm more determined than ever to get another Toyota as my next car.
 
All the little voices in my head tell me not, under any circumstances, to pick the Rover. But I can't help but give it my vote. Sure they've got Land Rover's legendary (un)reliability that I've experienced first hand many times. Yet I can't ignore the fact that my Disco has never left me stranded anywhere. (When it breaks it's always when I set off to leave home.) It's the first vehicle I've ever had that I can say that about, and I've driven many more miles in the Disco than I probably did in my previous cars combined. But when something does break it's usually pretty easy to get to and fix. I'm not sure how things are with a Toyota as far as repairability.
 
After having seen the "Top Gear Special" I guess I would go for the Toyota Hilux. Just to think of all the challenges this pickup truck has gone through on Top gear and has survived, I would choose the Hilux blindfolded.
 
If my life DIDN'T depend on it, the Defender. It's just cooler.

If my life depended on it, the Toyota, in a second. You can't kill them.

(@ The Chad: Are they not selling Defenders here in the states now? I've seen quite a few of them in different places.)
 
The Toyota, mainly from my own experience with this car. It has never left us stranded even when something broke, the only time it didn't get to its destination was because of a dead battery and it was mere seconds away from getting home.
 
We had a mitsubishi pajero with a secondary fuel tank fitted and it bottemed out on a rut in the outback and it fell off (bolts sheered clean in half) luckily we did't lose any fuel (we had plenty in the main tank anyway) and we managed to find some bolts off the trailer that weren't integral to the design, screwed them in and off we went.
 
73GMCSprint said:
If my life DIDN'T depend on it, the Defender. It's just cooler.

If my life depended on it, the Toyota, in a second. You can't kill them.

(@ The Chad: Are they not selling Defenders here in the states now? I've seen quite a few of them in different places.)
Click to expand...

they stopped years ago because of US safety laws. Go look on Auto trader for a 2nd hand one, they are the only British car to not depreciate faster than a rock from an airplane.

Scott said:
It says Toyota wanted the good press is what it says
Click to expand...

The choosing of the rather new Hilux had me wondering if it was a deal with Toyota, or because the Icelandic pro's helping them chose it and modified it. Usually these types of guys will go with something a little older, cheaper, and "figured out."
 
Toyota. They're solid offroaders.

I don't have much experience with the Defender, except that it looks badass in photos and in person.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top