The Ancient Toyota Land Cruiser 70 Gets a Manual Gearbox

2025 is sort of right here, however in the present day, we’re speaking about how Toyota is giving the Land Cruiser a five-speed handbook gearbox. Sure, 5. As you possibly can inform from the pictures, it’s not the J300 Sequence offered in sure markets or the J250 Sequence we get right here in the US. To hint this SUV’s origins, we should return to 1984. That’s two years earlier than yours actually was even born. The traditional J70 Sequence will get an replace for 2025, 4 many years after its launch.

Regardless of dropping the V-8 engine earlier this 12 months as a result of “altering rules and group expectations,” the J70 retains on truckin’ in Australia. When it died, the 4.5-liter diesel took away with it the handbook gearbox. Now, the three-pedal setup is again, at the side of the smaller 2.8-liter four-pot. It, too, is a diesel, rated at 201 horsepower and 332 pound-feet (450 Newton-meters) of torque.

Regardless that it has 4 fewer cylinders, the smaller diesel has nearly the identical horsepower and an additional 15 lb-ft (20 Nm). Toyota nonetheless gives the J70 in Australia with a six-speed automated, by which case torque rises to 442 lb-ft (500 Nm). Choosing the auto brings the complete torque a lot sooner, at 1,600 rpm vs 2,400 rpm when the handbook is chosen. The stick shift does have distinctive gear ratios and beefier {hardware} to take the abuse a Land Cruiser is used to.

The handbook has shorter first via third gears to enhance efficiency off the road and an extended fifth to help gas effectivity and decrease engine noise at larger speeds. Toyota additionally put in a brand new flywheel however needed to take away the entrance console field to make room for the handbook gear shifter. The downhill help management additionally needed to be sacrificed for the old-school Land Cruiser.

The most affordable Land Cruiser J70 with a handbook transmission prices the equal of $50,000 within the Land Down Beneath. Nevertheless, Australia isn’t the one nation the place Toyota nonetheless sells the 40-year-old SUV. It’s additionally supplied at house in Japan, full with a fender-mounted mirror. A brief-wheelbase, two-door mannequin is on the market within the United Arab Emirates.

Though this era of the Land Cruiser has been up to date all through the years, it’s nonetheless a J70. To our information, that makes it the second-oldest automobile nonetheless in manufacturing, after the Lada Niva. The latter initially got here out in 1977, seven years earlier than the 70 Sequence.