Front looks good but the rear looks like a bloated Touareg. The landcruiser should look as incognito as possible without looking bland. The 80-series did this very well.
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Hear! Hear! That's the same model my dad owns and it's a great vehicle. The problem I have with the new cruisers is that they are too bloated with "luxury" crap. The tail lights are goofy looking and all those bulging plastic lenses are just asking to be shattered.
The 80-series was a perfect design, it just needed a V8 for better accleration and some larger brakes that last a bit longer. The body design is perfect for offroading with smooth cuves front and back with few places to get snagged on brush and branches. It always cracks me up when I see people put "brush guards" on the tail lights of Land Cruisers (or any SUV) - how often are you backing up through brush? Those wimpy little "yuppie bars" are just something else for the trees to grab and rip off.
But I digress. I like the front end of the new Crusier, except for the bulging plastic headlight lenses, the back end looks like it's wearing a bustle. The shot from under the car certainly looks like the underside of the FJ80, right down to the exhaust routing. The only thing I notice that has changed is the front end is independent - but it's been that way for a while. I think the FJ80 was the last with a live front axel.
The interior looks like it updates the traditional Land Cruiser look without loosing the overall feel.
Kebab gud said:
no word on engines yet
but i suspect maybe the new 5liter V8 at the top and 4liter V6 at the bottom
with Hopfully an all new diesel for europe and explorers
lets hope they finally come out with a V8 diesel this time
I would like to see a diesel for the US as well and maybe a V6 diesel for the FJ. I'm not sure you even need a V8 diesel for a vehicle this size, a six with a turbo would probably be more than enough to move the Land Cruiser around and would be better suited for low speed crawling than a petrol engine. Deisels run much hotter than petrol engines so for crawling speed you would have to really beef up the cooling system to keep the heat of a deisel V8 under control. Given the option of a V8 petrol or a V6 turbo diesel on a Land Cruiser I would be much more likely to go with the diesel.