Land Cruiser 70-series really zooms along
In the most recent episode of our video panel show Zooming with DRIVEN, we were asked to pick and present our favourite work utes as part of a game called “30-Second Sell”. By the way, if you’ve never seen Zooming with DRIVEN, check out all episodes at driven.co.nz/zooming-with-driven or look under the Video tab at the top of the homepage. We’re very professional; you’ll be impressed.
Anyway, it’s not often we get a double-up in this game because there are more than 40,000
DRIVEN listings to choose from, but it happened this time and with good reason, because the Toyota Land Cruiser 70-series is a truly awesome off-road machine. And since we’re talking V8s a bit this issue, we thought we’d spare a few paragraphs to celebrate the 70.
It’s a cult machine because it’s been around since 1984 and hasn’t changed a whole lot. Engines have been revised, safety has been upgraded — but it’s still essentially the same workhorse.
In its current guise, the 70-series is powered by a 4.5-litre single-turbo diesel version of the V8 engine that’s shared with the Land Cruiser 200-series (that one has two turbos, though). At $68,490 for the cab-chassis it’s also technically the cheapest new V8 you can buy in New Zealand (and manual!).
It’s so highly regarded as a work truck, Toyota went to the expense of re-engineering the single-cab to achieve a five-star ANCAP crash rating in 2017, so that it could continue to sell it in Australia — especially to the mining industry, which finds the Hilux much too fragile.
There are also double-cab ute, plus two-door and four-door wagon versions. All are archaic to drive, unbreakable off-road and absolutely a cult favourite. We love the 70-series . . . but you already guessed that.