Conqueror of Atlantis / Toyota test drives

Take a look at this car. Would it ever occur to you to call it beautiful? Only if you are attracted to the shapes of sumo wrestlers or wardrobes. Undoubtedly, the 200 is very well put together, and the "Toyota" designers clearly do not earn their salaries in vain, but beauty and, even more so, elegance are not at all the qualities that characterize the Land Cruiser and make it iconic. It is valued for something completely different. And that includes, one must suppose, its highly conservative "functional" exterior appearance. Here – no revolutions. "Stay as you are, stay yourself," – that is exactly about the Land Cruiser. Radical changes have affected, perhaps, only the front headlights, the radiator grille, the rear lights, and other "little things" (in comparison with the huge overall dimensions of the car), which, however, have given the new model a more dynamic and modern look.

And the mentioned functionality is determined by three main concepts: practicality (an amazingly multi-purpose car), a solid and prestigious appearance (you wouldn't be ashamed to show up in a "decent place" in it), and, of course, the outstanding off-road qualities inherited from its "forefathers" and then successfully developed (the name "Land Cruiser" is more than justified). And by these parameters, the "200" is more than a noticeable step forward compared to its predecessor. In general, it is quite difficult to write about this car after the report on the test drive of the "parallel" new product – the Lexus LX 570 – was published in the previous issue of "MOTOR". Fundamentally and in terms of its technical equipment (except for the air suspension in the Lexus), it is, as is known, practically the same car. The difference is only that the Land Cruiser 200 is an excellent car, as they say, couldn't be better, while the LX 570 is still even better, or rather – more "luxurious".

Probably, that is why, in accordance with the table of ranks, it was appropriate for our publisher, project chief Alexander Goryunov, to go to the test of the Lexus in pompous California, while the test of the essentially same Toyota on the slightly less pompous Canary Islands went to the editor-in-chief. There it is, that very class inequality that old Marx with his friend Engels and their Russian colleague Ulyanov-Lenin scourged with all their might, but to no avail – the cart is still there. For some, this "cart" is more expensive and more prestigious, for others – simpler and cheaper (not by much, though).

But I don't complain, because all these "brand" differences – this is "premium", and this is "super-duper-premium" – are, as they say now, completely irrelevant to me. As long as the person, that is, excuse me, the car is good. And the Land Cruiser is very, very good – I must admit that, even though I don't like SUVs as a class. Or rather – I am a staunch opponent of using such cars for driving on city streets. It's a different matter – their native element, off-road! And here the island of Fuerteventura – this "fragment of Atlantis" located just 100 km from the coast of North Africa – gives the new "land rover" the opportunity to shine with its off-road capabilities to the fullest. You just have to turn off the asphalt highway onto the foothills strewn with stones of various sizes or onto the sand of one of the widest, many kilometers long and often completely deserted beaches (though trying to plow the sandy desert is still not worth it – even the best SUVs have their limits of cross-country capability), and the Land Cruiser will get down to business.

Its main trump card, without a doubt, is the CRAWL Control system (only for the petrol version), described in detail, again, in relation to the Lexus 570, in the previous issue of "MOTOR". With the ABS and A-TRAC system integrated into it and in interaction with the electronic accelerator, it is, in essence, an off-road cruise control: you turn it on and, only setting the direction of movement with the steering wheel, relax, and the car, obeying the all-knowing computer, itself "works" the necessary wheels and at a minimal, turtle-like speed (1-3-5 km/h) climbs up a very steep (up to 32º) and rocky slope, carefully rolling from one boulder to another! I perfectly remember what serious efforts and skill such "auto-alpinism" exercises required about ten years ago, when such systems did not exist at all, and I, traveling behind the wheel of a specially prepared Jeep Wrangler through the canyons of the American states of Utah and Colorado, had to do all this "manually". Oh, and I had to sweat a lot then...

And here it is time to remember that the Land Cruiser and the Wrangler are distant relatives, they had a common "great-great-grandfather" – the legendary Jeep Willis, which was in service with American troops during World War II, and the very first Land Cruiser was practically an exact copy of it. It adopted a look more or less similar to today's later, when the model with the index 60 was released. Its further development was the LC 80 – and it was this (production, having undergone only the most necessary preparation) machine that, in addition to his own skill, our famous motorsportsman Sergei Girya – winner of many rally raids and participant in the "Dakar" – owed his success to. Well, this model, in turn, was replaced by the already well-known and extremely popular in our country Land Cruiser 100, which, in turn, was replaced by the even more advanced 200.

What it perhaps lacks is the air suspension that the more "wealthy" Lexus LX 570 is equipped with. Because, although the high ground clearance and extremely short overhangs facilitate off-road "acrobatics", the constant grinding and sound of impacts against stones coming from below suggest that everything has its measure and that the CRAWL Control system is clearly capable of more than the car's body allows.

Lovers of difficulties, by the way, have the opportunity to turn off this system, but it should be borne in mind that the new Land Cruiser is no longer equipped with the coveted rear differential. However, its off-road arsenal also includes other impressive weaponry. First of all, this is the standard (!) innovative Kinetic Dynamic Suspension System (KDSS – a kind of "hello" to the similar PDSS roll suppression system, which is only optionally equipped on the Porsche Cayenne). "Reading" information about the road under the wheels, this system correspondingly changes the characteristics of the anti-roll bars.

If there is smooth asphalt under the wheels, the control hydraulic cylinders maintain the proper stiffness of the stabilizers, which as a result provides not even a compromise, but a 100% combination of ride smoothness, refined handling, and stability. When the car goes off-road, the pressure in the hydraulic cylinders drops, and the stabilizers "loosen", ensuring free operation of the suspension within its full travel – which, in turn, ensures maximum off-road capability.

The use of the new system became a pill for Toyota engineers from a long-standing headache – the "ship-like" rocking of the car at high speed on not entirely smooth asphalt and large rolls when taking fast turns: now it became possible to use stabilizers of significantly greater thickness. And this, in turn, made it possible to reduce the steering gear ratio to 16.7:1, and now the more responsive steering wheel turns from lock to lock in just 3.14 turns.

Not only preserved as a fundamental element of the chassis design, but also radically strengthened by increasing the cross-section of the beams and using stronger steel, the frame of the new SUV compared to the LC 100: now its torsional rigidity is increased by 1.4 times, and bending rigidity by 1.2 times. A lightweight subframe is also installed at the front, and the spring supports are reinforced. At the rear, the torsion bars have also given way to coil springs. As a result of all the innovations, this large and heavy SUV handles on the highway significantly better than its predecessor. I would even say that the Land Cruiser has become more of a "road cruiser" or even a "street cruiser": despite the off-road advantages listed above, the emphasis in improving its driving qualities has shifted more towards the "passenger car" side. Well, such is the spirit of the times, such are the demands of the clientele, including the Russian one – the most numerous (in terms of Land Cruiser) in Europe, by the way.

But still, this "land cruiser" remains a real SUV – this quality cannot be taken away from it. In the aforementioned long-ago journey through the American Canyon Country, there was also an extremely spectacular episode when, having climbed somewhere very high and following the gestures of the instructor who got out of the car, all of us, the participants of the run, lined up our cars in a single line. And only after also turning off the engines and getting out of the cars, to our horror, we discovered that the front wheels had frozen just half a meter from the edge of a breathtaking abyss several hundred meters deep! The organizers of the LC 200 test drive in Fuerteventura prepared an even more extreme test of this kind for its participants: driving along a narrow mountain ridge-isthmus, only slightly wider than the car itself, where such abysses were already on both sides! Do you think anyone would arrange such a thing, even under the control of an experienced instructor, if there were no confidence in the absolute reliability of the car and its extraordinary capabilities? Hardly.

The island of Fuerteventura – over 20 million years old – and its mountain ranges are still relatively low, because over such a huge period they were simply smoothed out by the strong wind that blows here almost all year round (which is why the world's largest windsurfing center is located here). And therefore clouds do not linger here – it is almost always clear. And this island, even if it was not once part of Atlantis long ago, is also legendary because it was, according to Plutarch, that the great Homer sang in his poetry under the guise of one of the mythical "happy islands", "islands of the blessed". Here, indeed, there is sheer bliss all around...

What am I getting at? Yes, to the fact that although the history of the Land Cruiser spans only half a century, and Homer did not sing of it, it has long since honestly earned its status as a legend, and its owner will be happy. And another curious association: almost fifteen years ago, a former American military transport, converted after the war into a transatlantic liner, was shipwrecked off the coast of Fuerteventura. While being towed behind a tug (with the name "Neftegaz 67" native to us) from Greece to Thailand for another reconstruction, it broke away from the tow ropes, hit underwater rocks, and, splitting in two, forever froze in the shallow water of the purest turquoise color near the remote beach of Playa de Garcey in the southwest of the island.

Unlike it, the Land Cruiser 200, this "land cruiser", also a former American military transport in its past life, successfully passed the test of the treacherous island of Fuerteventura and has already safely reached Russian dealer showrooms. So, to be continued.