Toyota releases 60th Anniversary Cruiser

LAND ROVER celebrated its 60th birthday in 2008 by releasing a limited-edition Defender and now Toyota has done similar by announcing a special-edition 60th Anniversary LandCruiser to commemorate six decades of its off-road icon.

Arriving in Toyota dealerships across Australia this month, the 60th Anniversary 200 Series wagon is claimed to offer more than $5000 worth of extra equipment, with prices starting from $79,990 for the entry-level 4.7-litre petrol V8 version - $2576 more than the entry-level GXL petrol auto upon which it is based.

There will also be a 4.5-litre V8 diesel version of the unique 60th Anniversary LC200 priced at $90,990, which is $3326 more than the base LandCruiser GXL diesel auto but also includes the clever KDSS suspension system – normally a $3250 option on the entry-level LC200 diesel.

Left: Japan's 60th Anniversary LandCruiser with 'Black Leather Selection' and (below) with a brown leather interior. While there are no price or specification changes to any other 200 Series models, both 60th Anniversary models will come with a “leather accented interior”, silver roof rails, touch-screen satellite-navigation with a four-CD changer, a premium steering wheel and gearshifter, Bluetooth hands-free compatibility and 60th Anniversary exterior and dashboard badging.

“The powerful yet efficient LandCruiser 200 harnesses cutting-edge technology to provide a genuinely unique 4WD experience, rarely seen in vehicles in this class,” says Toyota on its public website. “It's timeless, yet offers contemporary style. It's also tough, but amazingly comfortable.” The local reveal of the special 60th Anniversary LandCruiser follows the appearance of two even more luxuriously appointed 60th Anniversary LC200 editions in Japan last month, when Toyota announced a ‘60th Black Leather Selection’ model complete with an all-black leather and woodgrain interior with white trim stitching and numbered key fobs, alongside the option of a brown leather interior.

Toyota says the 60th Anniversary edition LC200 is designed to celebrate 60 years of its legendary off-roader, given the first prototype of the precursor to the LandCruiser (the ‘Toyota BJ Jeep’, which was built to then-new Willys Jeep specifications during the Korean war at the request of the US government) was produced in January 1951 – three years after the first Land Rover emerged in 1948.

Toyota’s BJ Jeep did not enter production until 1953 and it wasn’t until 1954 that the LandCruiser nameplate was applied to it, to give Toyota’s first off-roader a more “dignified” label than its competitors from the US and UK.

The original BJ Jeep evolved into the second-generation 20 Series LandCruiser in 1955, but it took until 1958 for the first LandCruiser wagon to emerge in Japan.

The 20 Series LandCruiser was not only the first Toyota vehicle to be built outside Japan (in Brazil), but the first Japanese model to be routinely imported to Australia, where locally made bodies on the FJ25/28 chassis were first pressed into action for the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme.