Making its world premiere at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the all-new 2010 Toyota Land Cruiser, which also previews the North American market Lexus GX, will go on sale in Europe and other international markets before the end of fall 2009. Building upon the design of its predecessor, the sixth-generation Land Cruiser gets fresh sheetmetal with softer shapes all around and a completely revamped interior featuring a more contemporary design for the dashboard.Toyota says that the new Land Cruiser, which will be available in most markets in three- and five-door bodystyles, has a more spacious cabin. The five-door model will be offered in a seven-seat version with a third row of two full-size seats that can fold completely flat into the loadspace floor when not in use. The second row seats now have a sliding range of 135mm and a more flexible 40:20:40 configuration, with reclining seatbacks.
Being a proper off-road model, the Land Cruiser sticks with the body-on-frame construction, however, its rigidity has been increased by 11 per cent while insulating frame-to-body mounts have been added to absorb engine, drivetrain and road noise, and to improve ride comfort.
The vehicle's front independent double wishbone and rear four-link lateral rod suspension systems have been revised for extra comfort and better steering feel, while higher grade models are equipped with a new electronic Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (KDSS), which adjusts the front and rear anti-roll bars for optimised on and off-road performance.
The flagship models also benefit from an electronically controlled rear air suspension system that works with Toyota's Adaptive Variable Suspension (AVS) system with Roll Posture Control allowing the driver tune the ride characteristics with a choice of three damper settings.
A new feature for the sixth-gen Land Cruiser is the Multi-terrain Select, which automatically controls power and braking to optimize performance for different types of off-road surfaces. The system also combines a monitor that shows real time images from around the vehicle from a network of four cameras supposedly providing the driver with more information about the immediate surroundings.
In the European market, the new Land Cruiser will offer buyers a choice of two revised engines, a 4.0-litre V6 Dual VVT-i petrol producing 249 horsepower and a 3.0-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder diesel that makes 173 horsepower. Toyota says that CO2 emissions of both engines have been reduced by 12%, while the diesel model returns a combined fuel consumption of 8.1 lt / 100km (29mpg US) with CO2 emissions of 214g/km.
