This Is What the Toyota Land Cruiser Should Look Like
YotaTech reimagines Toyota’s legendary off-roader with a design that blends modern and retro styling.
Let’s face it: The new Toyota Land Cruiser is, well, boring. Decades of consumer test panels and marketing research has led to dull styling that blends well with the soccer mom crowd but doesn’t do the legendary off-roader’s street cred any favors. And that got us wondering: What if Toyota built a Land Cruiser that packed styling worthy of its real-world capability?
Retro styling isn’t quite as hot as it was a few years back. But we believe that special vehicles like the Land Cruiser deserve to pay homage to their glorious past. That’s why we teamed up with a talented artist, Pratyush Rout, who reimagined the current ‘ute into something more worthy of its badge. And the result is a seamless blend of both old and new.
Best of all, our artist didn’t just take an old school Cruiser and make it modern. You’ll find plenty of inspiration from both past and present Toyota models, which, of course, includes legendary makes like this meticulously restored 1967 FJ45LV. After all, you can’t design a proper modern Land Cruiser without paying homage to the iconic FJ. Or at least you shouldn’t.
To give our new Land Cruiser a shot at legitimacy, the artist also incorporated modern Toyota design language. Namely, he included some elements from the equally edgy FT-4X Concept that bowed at the 2017 New York International Auto Show. Unlike that funky soft-roader, however, our concept features a more mature expression of that design language.
The end result is something that we’re admittedly quite keen on. And we think you will be, too. Sadly, this modern interpretation is nothing more than a conceptual dream. But that doesn’t make us want it any less — consumer test panels be damned!
Illustration by Pratyush Rout exclusively for YotaTech
