This is the Land Cruiser Toyota Should Import Into the US
I wish vehicle manufacturers would get a hint and learn that there is a untapped market of buyers who would prefer to buy a rugged, utilitarian, solid axle 4×4 vehicle over a luxury, IFS mall crawling SUV on a mini-van chassis.
The only vehicles you can buy new in the US that has a solid axle are the new Jeep Wranglers and 3/4 ton and above Ford and Dodge pickup trucks (WTF GM?). I guess the vehicle manufacturers figure nobody uses their vehicle to venture off the paved roads and access remote areas of the US and Canada. As long as people can build a poser rig that looks the part, that’s all that matters to the consumer.
I don’t expect Ford, GM or Daimler-Chrysler (other than the Unimog or a Mercedes G-Wagon) to design a vehicle to meet this need. I know it costs millions of dollars to bring a new vehicle to market. What upsets me is that there vehicle manufacturers that already have this type of vehicle being manufactured for export around the world (Toyota, Nissan, Land Rover). WHY NOT IN THE USA?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a turbo diesel V8 that get 21 mpg and has a range of 900 miles. A vehicle that comes if multiple different configurations such as a Cab Chassis, Troop Carrier or Wagon. How about a 5 speed manual transmission. Even better yet, how about a solid front axle for durability, flex and simplicity.
Such vehicles do exist. One example is the 70 series Toyota Land Cruiser
The 70 series Toyota Land Cruiser is a perfect example of the type of vehicle we need imported into the US.
It meets European emission and safety requirements that are more stringent than US requirements. Its available in both left-hand and right-hand drive versions. It’s not like they have to redesign a new vehicle.
So why doesn’t Toyota import these Land Cruisers? I don’t know. It’s not like the US doesn’t have millions of outdoors man, ranchers, contractors, 4×4 enthusiasts etc. that would prefer a dependable, utilitarian, rugged, non-disposable, off-road capable vehicle. We don’t need all the fancy gadgets and features that will eventually stop working and cost too much to fix (or worse yet, fail somewhere far away from a dealership in the middle of the wilderness).
The hot-selling Toyota FJ Cruiser is the only recent new vehicle (other than the Jeep Wrangler) that has good off-road capabilities. Why not build upon the success of the FJ Cruiser and bring us the 70 series Toyota Land Cruiser to the USA.
May 9th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
The costs of bringing a vehicle to market are more than just importing one and putting it in a dealer’s lot. The vehicle does require some redesign; for example MPH on the speedos. DOT doesn’t care for EU lighting; not the often used clear lenses, the headlights with a totally different lighting pattern, or the headlight-leveling systems.
Even though these seem like relatively minor build options, they do have to be designed into the line, and all that costs money. Especially if final assy is occurring on fixed lines… Not every assy plant can handle one car being different than the next like some of the line technology BMW pioneered with their “build module” technique that lets them turn out different cars at the same time on the line.
If these trucks are relatively low volume, then final assy may even be by hand… For example it’s generally told that the Discovery’s through the 90s were still hand-built vehicles. Looking at mine, I totally believe it. So the production volume might be at an awkward place - not enough production capacity to support the NA market, but not enough volume would be generated by NA to support the capital costs of computerizing the line and doing the tooling.
Then there’s the fact that DOT doesn’t care about all those EU crash tests, engine tests, etc you had done… You have to do all that again, and re-certify everything. The DOT requires a bunch of the cars to wreck, blah blah blah. It all adds up.
You also have to setup a parts distribution network for the vehicle, and start shipping parts over. This sinks a large capital cost into the roll-out into the market because all these parts have to be produced and sent to dealers, supply chains have to be managed, etc etc.
Basically unless they feel pretty sure of selling thousands of them a year, they aren’t going to bother. I can’t really blame them.
And this is before they even spend some number of millions to market the car to the fickle American audience who pretty provably does not want to build solid axle, frame-rail SUV’s for recreation. If they did, Ford would still make the Bronco’s, Jeeps wouldn’t look like they do, and the world would be a better place for ORV users.
The answer though is to dump the IFS. No one says you have to keep it. There are people in the area that have been cutting the IFS not only off their Toyotas but even crazier things like XTerras.