Video: Toyota LandCruiser 60th anniversary tribute

Article
Gallery

By Brett Davis | August 04th, 2011

To celebrate the Toyota LandCruiser’s 60th anniversary, Toyota has put together a nice little video tribute showcasing a timeline of the popular SUV as a bit of a birthday gift.

The video goes through each of the different generations briefly, showing some fairly unique off-road footage of the old LandCruisers, before giving us a few demonstrations of how well the LandCruiser has aged, proving it can still get over and through when the going gets rough.

Since it was launched 60 years ago, officially on August 1, 1951, the vehicle has been one of the most popular off-road options for consumers around the world. Even today, there are loads of off-road enthusiasts who simply can’t get enough of them.

According to VFACTS data, Toyota LandCruiser sales have dropped off a bit in Australia in the recent past, but it hasn’t stopped it being a popular choice for all-terrain fleet buyers here and abroad.

In July, Toyota sold 619 ‘Cruisers compared with 726 of the same month last year. So far this year Toyota has sold 4729 examples, compared with 5221 sales of the same period of last year. A percentage of this can be attributed to supply issues following March’s Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster.

It’s still the most popular large SUV though, with the 200 Series model taking 73.1 per cent of the market share, leaving the remaining 26.9 percent to the Nissan Patrol.

After watching the LandCruiser tribute video below, it got us thinking, is the Toyota LandCruiser perhaps the all round best 4×4 of all time? It has served in the army and it is used by the United Nations like the some of the other contenders. What do you think?

Toyota Guru

Wake me up when this is finished.

bert

Hey go watch antique’s roadshow and leave this site for people who really car about the history of a great product like the landcruiser! And whats with the “TOYOTA GURU” more like “HOUSO GURU”.

Toyota Guru

Nothing wrong with LandCruisers. It’s the crap video with what seems like 2 mins of intro text I’m referring to.

bert

Hey go watch antiques roadshow and leave this site to people who really car about the history of a great vehicle like the LANDCRUISER. The best 4×4 on the face of the earth!

Alex

Not blowing sunshine up their own butt.. much.
Steve

Not one shot of “Soccer Mom” picking up the troops after school, or taking up two spots at the supermarket. Talk about false advertising!
Cliffo

Go the Cruiser!
Skybreak

The ‘Cruiser and Patrol make 100% of the large SUV market? What about the Land Rover Discovery?
A friend of mine has a new Disco and it is substantially bigger than my Prado.
Woody

Great movie for a legendary 4WD
Sven

Couldn’t they make the scenes go even faster?! I can do a remake of all of those scenes with a Lada Niva…except…the Lada still looks the same.

But, the Land Cruiser is still legendary. Respect.
anthony

great history. but… not sure if they have gotten tougher.. the whole 200 series was just driving on gravel roads and one or 2 sand dune shots?…i like my troopy still
Gibbo

“all round best 4×4 of all time?”- thats a big call. Cant say I agree, my vote goes to the Range Rover for that title.
money from junk

I agree Gibbo, when the Range Rover is actually running.
anthony

are we talking about the british range rover. or american… or indian? i cant quite keep up:P
John

Long live the king. I like this video. The Cruiser got 4 straight wins on Dakar – no other vehicle got that, including Mit Pajero/Montero or Touareg, those was very modified T1/special vehicles – the Touareg have NOTHING related with the production model: it’s a cage.

I’m sure Toyota can make another vehicle, maybe better for some. A not so large width one, 35″ tires standard, space frame, more robust bumpers and options from factory. This could be the best Cruiser of all time.