Should Toyota turn the new Land Cruiser into a pickup truck?

The Toyota Land Cruiser has a long history of heavy-duty pickup truck variants, and we’re hoping this latest concept might signal that a revival is in the works. 

This is the Land Cruiser ROX, and that suffix stands for ‘Recreation Open eXperience’. Bit of a stretch, but we’ll allow it. Anyway, developed as an ‘ambitious concept’ by Toyota Motor North America (TMNA), it was unveiled at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas last week.

Apparently, over 50 per cent of the donor Land Cruiser 250 had to be refabricated to allow for the new open-topped design, with new body panels, custom skeleton doors, high-clearance rocker panels and those chunky rock sliders.

As you can probably tell, there’s a four-inch lift kit with custom TRD independent suspension, and the track is eight inches wider thanks to the use of forged aluminium control arms. Chunky arch extensions help to cover the 18in custom Calty-designed wheels and big off-road tyres. There’s also extra underbody protection and new steel bumpers front and rear. Looks mean.

The sliding soft top can be fully opened above the passengers, but it’s the pickup bed out back that gets us really excited. Who wouldn’t want a posh double cab pickup version of the new Land Cruiser? This one even gets little cushions to make sitting on the tailgate that little bit more comfortable. Oh, and there’s Heritage Orange leather inside. Yes please.

“The end result is a seamless blend of rugged durability and open-air freedom, offering an exhilarating new take on the classic Toyota Land Cruiser that can easily be envisioned as a future production model,” reads the TMNA press release. We’d be inclined to agree.