Toyota infamously discontinued the Land Cruiser in 2021—in North America, at least. Other markets got the 300-series Cruiser when the 200 went out of production in the course of a normal model change cycle, but we did not. That’s not entirely true, because the folks over at Lexus agreed to sell the 300-series, and they brought it over as the LX600.
Only one of the five LX grades costs less than $100,000. To save the Land Cruiser, Toyota decided to kill it first; otherwise, the prospect of a $90,000-plus 300-series Land Cruiser might do it in for them.
Why skip two model years? Disregard any “We heard you, so we’re bringing it back” PR spin, because it’s hogwash. They planned to switch to the 250-series Land Cruiser Prado chassis all along, but it was on a different development timetable. This year was the soonest they could get it back in circulation.
The result is a 2024 Land Cruiser that starts at just $57,345 for the base model, called the 1958, and rises to $63,345 for the well-equipped Land Cruiser grade of the mid-size SUV. The First Edition, a $76,345 limited-time-only kitchen-sink model loaded with accessories, is what we’re looking at here. It’s identical to the others underneath, except the 1958 has 32-inch tires instead of 33s and lacks the stabilizer bar disconnect the others have. All of this is a huge step forward, because the volume-selling Land Cruiser grade comes in nearly $24,000 less than the deceased Cruiser’s final base price of $87,030, while the base 1958 is almost $30,000 less expensive.
Is it a real Land Cruiser? Purists have long dissed the Prado, but that dates back to the ’90s when the Prado switched to 4Runner-based independent front suspension while the 80-series still had a solid front axle. The Prado name got a spiteful bit of tarnish in the eyes of some at that moment. But a funny thing happened when the 100-series Land Cruiser came out: it had independent front suspension too. The 200-series went that way, and IFS is here to stay.
Today, Toyota is switching all of its body-on-frame trucks and SUVs to a new Toyota Next Generation Architecture (TNGA-F) platform. The 250-series Land Cruiser, Lexus GX550, 300-series Lexus LX600, and the newly announced next-gen 4Runner all share a wheelbase of 112.2 inches. Their suspension track widths match except for small wheel-offset differences that make the published dimensions measured at the tire tread differ by a few millimeters, at most. The suspension types and layouts are the same too: independent dual control arms with coil-overs up front, five-link coil-spring solid axle at the back.
In this video, we’ll take a look at the new Land Cruiser’s suspension, and then we’ll run it up my RTI ramp to see how well it flexes. I’ve already tested a 200-series Land Cruiser and the 300-series LX600, so we have two relevant points of comparison.
Dan Edmunds was born into the world of automobiles, but not how you might think. His father was a retired racing driver who opened Autoresearch, a race-car-building shop, where Dan cut his teeth as a metal fabricator. Engineering school followed, then SCCA Showroom Stock racing, and that combination landed him suspension development jobs at two different automakers. His writing career began when he was picked up by Edmunds.com (no relation) to build a testing department.