Toyota Land Cruiser Gold Portfolio 1956 - 1987

Compiled by R.M.Clarke, Softbound, 172 Pages, ISBN: 9781855203983, A-TOYLGP - Foreword by James Taylor

The Toyota Land Cruiser has just passed its fortieth anniversary of availability outside Japan, but the material written about it is still not slackening.. So here at Brooklands Books we decided it was time to search the archives once more. We discovered an extra 88 pages of interesting material over that already found in our original road test book Toyota Land Cruiser 1956-1984! So what could we do but produce a Gold Portfolio? And here it is; look out too for another new book bringing the Land Cruiser story into the nineties.

As ever, this Gold Portfolio could never have been produced without the kind co-operation of those magazines wherein these articles were originally published. Articles for this Gold Portfolio are reproduced from 4 Wheel Drive, 4x4, 4x4 Driver, Autocar, Bushdriver, Car South Africa, Cars, Custom Car, Four Wheel Driver, Four Wheeler, Modern Motor, Motor Life, Motor Trend, Off Road, Off Road and 4 Wheel Driver, Overlander, PV4 and Road Test. Our thanks as always, go to them.

R M Clarke

The original BJ-85 Land Cruiser which appeared in the early Fifties was little more than a Jeep clone, built using existing light truck components and intended for use by the Japanese self-defence force and by emergency authorities. Few made it beyond the shores of Japan, although a small number were sold to enthusiastic new owners in Australia towards the middle of the decade.

By then, however, Toyota had given a great deal more thought to the non-military possibilities of a light 4x4 utility vehicle. The American Jeep and the British Land-Rover had opened up the market, and Toyota followed their lead with the 20-series Land Cruiser, a vehicle with a much more civilian orientation.

Toyota policy remained one of continual evolution, and the 20-series gave way in time to 40- series, 50-series and 60-series models, each one offering rather more than the last. However, production of each successive series generally overlapped, reflecting Toyota's excellent understanding of the rather conservative market its Land Cruisers were selling into.

It took time for the Land Cruiser name to become firmly established outside Japan, but major sales success in Australia and around the Pacific Rim brought widespread recognition that this was indeed a vehicle to be reckoned with. Rugged, versatile, and offering a wide variety of engines, wheelbases and body types, the Land Cruiser had beaten off all opposition to become the world's best-selling light 4x4 range by the 1980s.

The appeal of those early vehicles comes across clearly in the articles reproduced here, which will delight Land Cruiser enthusiasts everywhere.

James Taylor.