Rock Solid! 76 Series long-term wrap up. Over the last six months I put around 17,000km on the clock of our long term 76 Series Toyota LandCruiser. That’s more than the average car travels in a year, and includes trips all through Queensland’s coast and hinterland, as well as our big Cape York Expedition.
It is unequivocally the best tourer, for people who really want to get off the beaten path, that I’ve ever driven. It offers all of the utilitarian charm of a Defender 110 with better cargo space and access, and just enough mod-cons to entertain comparing it with the rest of the large tourers.
Every car on the road is the result of a series of compromises. From how the engine performs, balancing between performance and fuel efficiency, to the build of the thing, taking into account price versus the list of inclusions. That’s what happens when you do things by committee. As someone once said, a committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. The 76 is so uncompromising, so single-minded in its vision of what a 4WD should be that it lacks the concessions of so many other vehicles on the road and goes straight for the jugular of what country-folk really want in a car. It answers those needs and defines them simultaneously, straight from the showroom floor.
After crawling around under a 70 Series ’Cruiser, you start to wonder what all the junk under every other 4WD is for. This thing is downright agricultural, but that’s because the only bull dung farmers want in their lives is the stuff on the ground everywhere. That surety of purpose means you don’t have to worry about ‘one more thing to break’ on this vehicle. Its simplicity is its greatest asset.
Weighing a few hundred kilos less than a Patrol, with an engine that doesn’t even bother laughing at everything else on the market, it is both light and powerful. Seriously, the sound of the turbocharger sucking in air as the 4.5L intercooled V8 diesel cranks it up a hill turns heads every time. If you also happen to have a cow’s skull strapped onto the roof rack, people will literally run into light poles on the sidewalk.
Coming back from Cape York, where everyone on the trip sustained some degree of damage to man or machine, I dropped it into the dealership. Bearing in mind that I was the only car on the trip with stock-standard suspension, I expected a hairy report: water in the transfer case, bent axles, kinked steering dampener, etc.
In fact, the only damage to the entire vehicle was a torn-off mud flap that Stupot was astute enough to pick up on the side of the track for me! There were grind marks on every bit of steel unlucky enough to fall between the front and rear bumpers on the undercarriage, but it held up like a tank.
Our next long-termer is going to be a Prado with all the fixings next year, so I look forward to putting the 150 through my paces, which are hard footsteps to follow for any 4WD.
Pictures: Carlisle Rogers
