Driven: 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser First Edition
2024 | car reviews | reviews | suvs | toyota | toyota land cruiser
After a three-year absence in the U.S., the Toyota Land Cruiser is back and marks a return to its adventurous roots in terms of style. We spent a few days getting to know the Land Cruiser First Edition and see if its performance and capabilities live up to its tough new looks.
With a boxy and upright shape, the Land Cruiser is no longer a soft-edged, luxury grocery-getter. Its looks are more purposeful and pragmatic this time out. The First Edition we drove features a heritage-inspired grille with TOYOTA badging, flanked by round LED headlights. Those round headlights are shared with the Land Cruiser 1958 grade, while you get rectangular headlights if you go with the mid-grade Land Cruiser. The First Edition also gets a heavy-duty 3/4-length roof rack, sturdy rock rails, skid plates, white/amber Rigid Industries fog lights, and special First Edition mud flaps. Our test vehicle's nature-inspired Trail Dust color was contrasted by a grey roof and black lower body cladding, which protects the paint from scratches from brush while driving off-road.
The First Edition's black 18-inch wheels provide a bit more sidewall on the tires than the available 20-inchers. We'd love to see a beadlock wheel option down the road, but that'll be left to aftermarket parts makers for now. The included Michelin all-season LTX Trail tires aren't as aggressive as all-terrain tires but do a good job providing a smooth ride in everyday driving and didn't have any problem gripping in deep and sloppy mud. With 8 inches of ground clearance, the Land Cruiser isn't as tall as some off-road capable vehicles, but we wouldn't be surprised if a lifted TRD variant is in the works somewhere down the road.
Here in the U.S., the Land Cruiser is available exclusively with Toyota's i-FORCE MAX hybrid powertrain. This combines a 2.4-liter 4-cylinder turbocharged engine with electric motors to provide 325 combined horsepower and 465 lb-ft. of torque. After spending some time driving the Land Cruiser's cousin, the Lexus GX 550, we wondered if Toyota's decision to skip the V6 would be to its disadvantage, but the torque numbers are so close that the Land Cruiser never feels underpowered. And with a 6000-pound towing capacity, it'll pull your wake boat to the dock with no problem. The 8-speed automatic transmission shifts quickly, smoothly, and predictably, too. As a bonus, Toyota has a substantially better fuel economy than Lexus, offering 22 mpg in the city, 25 mpg on the highway, and 23 mpg combined. For comparison, the GX 550 gets 15 mpg in the city, 21 mpg on the highway, and 17 mpg combined. The Land Cruiser has a slightly smaller fuel tank than the GX, but it'll still give you more than 400 miles of range between fill-ups.
The Land Cruiser First Edition has plenty of features to help provide traction when it leaves the pavement for more earthy surroundings. Among them is Multi-Terrain Select, which optimizes power distribution on rocks, dirt, sand, mud, or deep snow. Set it to Auto mode for mixed terrain, and it'll use its sensors to detect how to best manage traction. The full-time 4-wheel-drive system also has electronically-locking center and rear differentials, which you can enable on-demand to evenly distribute power from front to rear and side to side. The two-speed transfer case switches quickly and effortlessly between 4-high and 4-low modes. There's also a pushbutton control for disconnecting the front axle stabilizer bars. This increases wheel travel and helps keep your tires planted on uneven terrain. It's not automatic, nor does it unlock the rear stabilizer bar like the fancy E-KDSS system in the GX 550's Overtrail grade, though.
There's also Crawl Control, which automatically manages throttle and brake application so you can focus on steering when climbing or descending steep grades. When set to the 4-low mode, you also get a Multi-terrain Monitor, which uses multiple cameras to improve visibility. This combines a forward-facing view with a top-down view of the front wheels, helping you precisely place your wheels and see obstacles you might not otherwise see without a spotter. This display also shows the vehicle's pitch and roll angles.
The interior design of the Land Cruiser is precisely as we'd want it to be. It has a muscular aesthetic with lots of sharp angles and thick but cushioned surfaces. The First Edition has perforated leather seats with heating and ventilation and other upgrades like a beefy 14-speaker JBL audio system and a 12.3-inch touchscreen running the recently launched Toyota Multimedia system. The Land Cruiser also gets this larger screen, while the base Land Cruiser 1958 has a smaller 8-inch touchscreen. The 12.3-inch multi-information display has a more seamless look than the combination of analog gauges and the 7-inch display in the base trim. The fully-loaded First Edition also gets a cool box in the center console, a head-up display, a digital rearview mirror, a wireless charging tray, and 8-way power seat adjustments with driver-side memory.
Forward visibility is better than you'd expect from a tall SUV, in part thanks to the sloped hood design but also thanks to relatively narrow A-pillars. And the aforementioned camera system helps you see anything you might have missed. The interior is pretty well insulated from sound, though some wind noise from the boxy mirrors does make it through at highway speeds. And while the Land Cruiser's cabin isn't all that tall, our aging muscles and bones appreciate the grab handles to help pull you up into the seats.
Legroom and headroom in the second row are plentiful, and taller passengers will have no problem sitting back here in comfort on longer journeys. On the back of the center console, you'll find a pair of USB-C ports for charging gadgets and a 12-volt DC port. There are also independent rear climate controls back here. The second-row seats lift up and forward to maximize cargo-carrying capacity as well.
With the rear seats in use, there's 37.5 cubic feet of cargo space, which is plenty for a long weekend's worth of luggage and camping gear. With the seats folded up, you get 81.7 cubic feet. That's not as much as the GX 550 because of the extra space taken up by the hybrid's battery pack, which also raises the cargo deck's floor by several inches. If you need more space, though, there's always the large roof rack.
Gone is the sideways-opening access door of older Land Cruisers, replaced by a more conventional liftgate design. This provides greater accessibility to the cargo area and is easier to open in a garage or other tight parking space. The Land Cruiser and First Edition grades get a power version of this liftgate. You can still open the rear window independently, which is convenient for quickly tossing items inside. For nighttime adventures, Toyota really knocked it out of the park with the bright LED illumination. I had to load up my gear before sunrise for an early flight, and it was such a pleasure to see what I was doing instead of stumbling around in the darkness.
From its rugged good looks to its powerful new drivetrain, the 2024 Land Cruiser is a delightful return to form for Toyota's adventure-loving SUV. With the base Land Cruiser 1958 starting at just under $56,000, it's also a rare case where the new model is substantially less expensive than the previous generation. The mid-grade Land Cruiser starts at $61,950, while the fully-equipped First Edition we drove had a sticker price of $76,825, including the delivery and processing fee. We will point out that you can get into a Lexus GX 550 Overtrail for less than that, and that comes with adjustable air suspension for added ground clearance and E-KDSS for enhanced wheel travel when off-roading. You can't go wrong with either SUV, but we give the edge to the Lexus if your budget is $70,000 or more.
