Toyota Land Cruiser 76 LX (2024) Station Wagon Review
The iconic Land Cruiser is built to conquer terrain that will instil fear in the hearts of the most intrepid explorers. Yet, many will complain that it's too pricey and doesn't offer enough modern convenience and safety equipment for 2024. Is the new Land Cruiser as basic and gruff as it's perceived to be? We put the new 76 wagon to the test to find out!
Styling
The 76 pays homage to the Land Cruiser’s retro heritage with its timeless styling. Its boxy design is accentuated by a bold, black grille and classic round headlights with LED fog lamps below. The steel bumper and black over-fenders give it that rugged, off-road look, while the dark grey alloy wheels complete the tough exterior.
Read: Toyota Land Cruiser 70 Series First Drive
At the back, the focus is on functionality. Don’t expect fancy LED light signatures; they are plain and simple taillights and fog lights that do their job well. The massive boot opens via barn doors, and there’s a spare wheel slapped on the right door because this is not a fashion show, and the Cruiser 76 is not here to look sexy.
I’m so glad Toyota didn't stray too far from this design route - people who don’t know the brand didn’t even know that the latest ‘Cruiser was a new car. After all, the typical Land Cruiser 70 Series buyer isn’t too concerned with what people think of them, making the car (and them) even cooler. In our week in the Cruiser, we got pulled over three times by traffic officials with a trained eye who just wanted to admire the car!
Toyota Land Cruiser 70 Series models - here's our winner.
Space and Comfort
The retro theme continues on the inside with a squared-off dash design that maximises space up front. There’s even a little armrest cubby between the seats now. However, the only soft-touch surfaces in the cabin are the inserts in the doors that echo the velvety material that covers the seats. These are quite supportive, if not quite orthopaedist-approved.
Toyota provides occupants with two cupholders up front: one big one to the left of the gear lever and a smaller one between the front seats. The door cards in all doors are very slim but perfect for another device or a real paper map if the driver is a Boomer or a member of Generation X.
Unfortunately, row two’s legroom is tighter than a frog’s behind, but at least the front seat backs are soft and flexible, so your second-row passengers’ knees won’t get sore on shorter trips. Carpooling is only possible if the kids are vertically challenged and there isn’t an Isofix anchor point to dream of. I would probably take these seats out and throw a mattress in there. You can also fold the seats forward (they also split 60:40) to make more room for your gear if those seats are used occasionally.
The boot is absolutely massive, and on short trips from the lagoon to my house, which is a five-minute drive, my teenager insisted on riding in the back because legroom is so limited. It also keeps the rest of the fully carpeted car free of sand, but I would definitely consider a rubber boot mat of some sort, especially if you’re a dog lover, and the Land Cruiser 76 is ideal for animal lovers!
Infotainment and Convenience
Just because you’re the rugged type doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate the finer things in life, like smartphone mirroring with music streaming services and Satnav. Toyota delivers with a small touchscreen that enables Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, the above-mentioned built-in GPS, and a few more surprisingly modern features, such as optional built-in Wifi.
There’s a small USB-A port right next to the screen, two USB-C ports below it, and a compartment for your phone.
Watch our Land Cruiser 79 video review here!
The leather and wood steering wheel is completely buttonless, but the touchscreen is within easy reach—especially the buttons you’ll use the most, like volume—and the 4-speaker sound system is also much better than expected. If you do not enable smartphone mirroring (it is not wireless), you can go the usual Bluetooth route as well.
My favourite part of the interior, however, has to be the old-school controls for the air conditioning, which allow you to perfectly set your desired temperature, even if it doesn't show you degrees Celsius. Some things are just better when you do them yourself! Other standard kits include central locking, four electric windows, a basic tool set, and a full 265-70R16 Alloy spare wheel with a carrier.
The Drive
On the day I fetched the Land Cruiser 76, there had been an accident on the N2 and protest action near Grabouw, and I was forced to take alternative routes: an untarred, somewhat unkempt mountain pass that snakes through a variety of vineyards and good old Clarence Drive, the picturesque route along the coastline between Gordon’s Bay and Rooi-Els.
Both are roads frequented by local motoring media and excellent for testing cars on- and off-road; the Cruiser passed the test with flying colours. Apart from the road and wind noise generated by the large off-road tyres and rectangular mirrors, piloting the Cruiser is a joyful experience. There’s a general feeling of carefreeness about it, as long as you’re not trying to converse about something important with your partner, because you won’t hear them properly.
Is the Land Cruiser 70 Series expensive to maintain? Find out here.
Despite its mega-turning circle, manoeuvring the Land Cruiser is not that difficult or uncomfortable thanks to its feather-light steering, but a quick U-turn is out of the question. The driving position is just sublime, however—you look down on Hiluxes and Ford Rangers, whose seating positions are already high.
For the rest of the Cruiser’s tenure with us, it carted kids to the school and beach, did grocery shopping, collected firewood, and made the usual airport runs, and every time it felt like an adventure. I had to pry the keys from my husband's hands to get a chance behind the steering wheel because he was in love.
My only complaint is the lack of rear parking sensors. The top-spec VX model gets a rearview camera, but Toyota should have just given the LX some rear-park distance control because the Cruiser is a very long and voluminous vehicle. I had no choice but to play barn owl and twist my neck as if I had been possessed to exit my parking spot.
A vanity mirror in the front passenger's sun visor would also be a welcome addition since you are paying almost a million Rand for this car.
I also appreciated the manual low-range transfer case - there’s none of that “shift-on-the-fly” nonsense here. I wish I had this car at Rust de Winter, where I competed in a 4x4 competition; amid the most challenging obstacle, my vehicle’s electronic low-range wouldn’t engage, and the men had a proper chuckle, blaming it on the ‘lady driver’, of course. If I had been in this ‘Master of Africa’ with its diff locks in the front and rear, things would have looked different!
(Want the finer details of specs and features? Visit the Toyota Land Cruiser 70 Series microsite here.)
Performance
Toyota’s well-known 2.8-litre turbodiesel is now on duty in the Cruiser to save owners from tearing up at the pumps, offering 150kW and a meaty 500Nm with a top speed of 150 km/h. Our stopwatch also showed that the Cruiser had no qualms in completing the 0-100 km/h sprint in just over 10 seconds. This was sufficient for thundering its 2 200kg heft up and down Sir Lowry’s pass and overtaking slower traffic. It will suffice for the wilder, rock-climbing, gravity-defying stuff, too, as my colleague found when he attended the launch. (The Cruiser's towing capacity is 3500 kg, braked.)
Safety
In a world where every new car is like a nagging parent that tells you to buckle up and keep your eyes on the road, the Land Cruiser's attitude is like Jordan Peterson's: by now, you're old enough to know that a safety belt can save your life, so put it on, or don't, and carry the responsibility yourself. The Boomers and Generation X, arguably a large percentage of the target market for the Cruiser 70 Series, appreciate being left to their own devices. Nothing and no-one is telling you what to do in the Cruiser 76, and it is wonderful.
For things outside our control, there are two airbags up front, along with the usual ABS and EBD. Then there's hill-start assistance, hill-descent control, traction and stability control, the aforementioned satnav, and front fog lamps (LED nogal).
In situations where thieves place large stones in the road to damage motorists' cars, the Land Cruiser will probably just drive over them, so its sheer ruggedness is also a safety feature.
Fuel Consumption
According to Toyota, 9.8 L/100km is the going rate (the Cruiser’s fuel tank carries 130 litres), and our calculations were more or less the same. Toyota reckons one full tank yields 1 327 km. While in our care, the fuel light came on at 925 km, and I filled up at 965 km, but 1 000 km-plus is easily attainable if fuel usage is 10.0 L/100 km. It's not like you're going to drive the Cruiser like you stole it either - things get a little noisy when you go fast. Heavy-duty off-roading will see that number rise to around 13 litres per 100 km, depending on how hard you push it and for how long.
Price
You’ll need to come up with R999 900 if you want to be the proud owner of the entry-level Land Cruiser 76 (LX trim) with a 2.8-litre engine and 6-speed auto-box; if you want a manual model, you can only get the wagon in 4.5D-4D V8 configuration, also an LX, for R1 076 800. The top-spec Land Cruiser 76 2.8GD-6 station wagon VX, which is also automatic, will cost you R1 091 400.
Download the entire Land Cruiser 70 Series brochure here to see specs for each model.
The Verdict
While the Cruiser competes with much more modern, better-equipped and more affordable cars like the Isuzu mu-X, Ford Everest, Mitsubishi Pajero Sport and Kia Sorento, there’s not much that can hold a candle to its off-roading skillset. Do I want to drive a big, burly, rof-en-onbeskofte Land Cruiser station wagon every day of the week, though?
Search AutoTrader for Land Cruiser 79 models with a 2.8-litre engine, here.
Yes. I do. The kids will just have to grin and bear it in the cramped second row. Mind you, in a few years' time, they’ll be out of the house anyway.
ENDS
