Depending on where you came of age, the mere sight of a Toyota Land Cruiser 70-Series might be enough to trigger a nostalgic reverie. Think utilitarian design that emphasized the functional over the sleek, and a body that could just as easily be used to transport a family as function as a pickup truck. This is a vehicle that embraced the time it was created; in a 2017 article about it, Bill McKinnon wrote that “a drive in Toyota’s workhorse is still a nostalgia trip back to the mid-1980s.”
And those drives remain frequent. That’s because the 70-Series has remained popular at various points across the globe, including Australia. At Autoblog, Ronan Glon noted that the 70-Series is slated to get a few upgrades for the 2022 model year. Why? Australian safety regulations are at the heart of the matter. Specifically, regulations governing pole side impacts — which, Glon writes, have prompted a few automakers to remove models from the Australian market altogether.
The 70-Series is slated to keep going, however. The specifics of how its design will change have not yet been determined or announced — though Glon notes that Toyota has several options open to it, including increasing its mass so that it would be considered a medium goods vehicle, and thus subject to different standards.
Autoblog points out that Toyota sold 10,000 70-Series vehicles last year, and are on a pace to sell slightly more this year. Sometimes when it comes to vehicles, everything old is new again; in the case of the 70-Series, it’s more that (metaphorically) slow and (figuratively) steady win the race.
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