Toyota tow favourite marks milestone

The Toyota LandCruiser has officially surpassed 10 million sales globally and Australians have bought more of them than any other country, with 10.6 per cent or 1,065,300 sold here.

Of that number 397,000 were workhorses including the current 70 Series range, 362,800 were large wagons including the latest 200 Series and 305,500 were ‘son of LandCruiser’ Prado wagons.

Last year alone, Australians bought 42,267 LandCruisers -- 13.3 per cent of the 318,000 sold globally – including more 70 Series vehicles than any other market, with most of them going to fleet customers in the construction, mining and farming industries in Queensland and West Australia.

Of the 170-odd countries in which they’re sold, Australia ranked number three in sales of both the 200 Series (behind UAE and Oman) and Prado (behind China and Japan).

Launched in 1951 as a rival for the Willys Overland Jeep, the original Toyota BJ was renamed the Land Cruiser in June 1954 and then the LandCruiser in the 1970s.

The LandCruiser is Toyota’s oldest nameplate, outdating the Corolla – the world’s top-selling passenger car with over 30 million sold in 140 counties – which debuted 12 years later.

Australia is widely credited with being Toyota’s first export market with the 20 Series LandCruiser, launched in Japan in November 1955, although LandCruiser exports commenced almost simultaneously with the US.

The first LandCruiser was sold in the US in 1958 and the first was imported to Australia in 1959 by (later Sir) Leslie Thiess for use on the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme.

The head of Theiss Constructions was so impressed by the 78kW 3.9-litre inline petrol six-powered FJ25 4x4 that he purchased a further 13 and on his next visit to Japan he met with then Toyota president Eiji Toyoda and later secured the Australian distribution rights.

Initially, Thiess Toyota (the forerunner of Toyota Australia) imported fewer than 100 LandCruisers a year, but by 1965 – two years after the Japanese car-maker opened its first plant outside Japan, building the Tiara in Melbourne -- that figure grew to more than 10,000 per annum.

The LandCruiser’s success story in Australia is partly attributable to Toyota’s willingness to address durability problems as they occurred, as one of Thiess’ sales executives, the late Alex McArthur, said in Toyota Australia’s book The Long Run.

“We had problems with the vehicles we put into the Snowy Mountains fleet, mostly front axle and gearbox troubles, because the conditions were very hard and difficult,” he said.

“We had Land Rovers, Willys and Austin Champs and they all broke too. If anyone could break a vehicle, it would be a Thiess construction crew.

“But the difference was that, when we had trouble, the Japanese immediately came out. They didn’t hesitate, dispatching engineers who lived with us on site until the problems were rectified.

“They’d fly out parts and send broken pieces back to Japan for analysis, to rectify the problem at the source.”

Toyota Australia vice-president of sales and marketing Sean Hanley concurs.

“Like all four-wheel drives, the LandCruisers had some issues in the extreme conditions, but it was Toyota’s response that set the company apart from its rivals,” he said.

“This was an amazing engineering response – an absolute determination to deliver quality, durability and reliability.”

Toyota’s 10-million milestone comes as it develops the next-generation 300 Series LandCruiser, which is expected to do away with V8 diesel power in favour of a turbo-diesel V6 -- and eventually a hybrid option – when it arrives in 2021.