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Toyota's fantastic on-off roader is here and ZigWheels' Adil Jal Darukhanawala gets first crack at the wheel of what is truly a terrain tamer par excellence. Unfussy, simple and understated it is the strong silent type which invariably and inevitably bests the rest. Shame therefore that it would be used more on than off-road where it truly belongs.
It finally had to happen and did so this Tuesday in Mumbai. I am referring to the official advent of what is generally acknowledged as the world's most accomplished on-off roader - the Toyota Land Cruiser V8. Make no mistake about it, this is no spruced up tiny Prado which we have been getting in petrol engined form for the better part of a few years.
The Land Cruiser V8 is the real Mojo, the big daddy of mud-pluggers, dune-demolishers, wadi-bashers, gradient crawlers, etc, etc apart from also being an accomplished road runner as well.
Toyota Kirloskar always had the big Land Cruiser penciled in for India but in typically thorough Toyota-esque product planning style, this took time, so much so that the more moderner European (sorry read that as German) SUVs leapfrogged it on to the Indian market. SUVs like the Audi Q7, the BMW X5, the Mercedes-Benz ML, the Porsche Cayenne and the Volkswagen Touareg are already on sale and have done impressively well by being chauffeur-driven behemoths for the well heeled. Of course much the same would be in store for the Land Cruiser but that would be a crying shame because in essence it is the last remaining SUV of its genre with genuine capability across all sorts of terrain and armed with a refreshing blend of traditional body-on-chassis approach coupled with tonnes of high tech running gear.
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The model which was launched this Tuesday is the eighth generation Land Cruiser and if it were not for its awesome capabilities it would have just been a lump of lard. This Land Cruiser is huge (almost 5 metres long and two metres wide), heavy (2555 kg - kerb weight) and hits the others where it hurts. Factor in a zero to 100km/h acceleration time of 8.2 seconds and a 210 km/h top whack you can see how surreal this can get. However, everything quite falls into place once you get this big momma of a SUV strutting her stuff once you get it off tarmac and not just on silly loose gravel but on truly challenging terrain where normal boulders, deep ruts and gullies, grille-deep streams and impossible gradients are taken in stride with utter disdain. All this while the pilot and the other occupants bask in comfort, with not a bead of sweat being whipped up! |
