The Toyota Land Cruiser 250, aka the Prado, made its global debut in early August of this year. Toward the end of the world premier video, we were shown silhouette of three vehicles on the big screen. Two of those three future vehicles were revealed at the recent Japan Mobility Show: the Land Cruiser Se, a sleek battery-electric SUV concept, and the Land Hopper, a three-wheeled electric personal mobility concept.
The third still-unnamed vehicle is a short boxy SUV with big tires, and a lot of ground clearance. Could this be the rumored ‘mini’ Land Cruiser, aka the next FJ? We think so.
We’ve reported about two probable architectures the Land Cruiser Mini could be built on. It could use either a shortened version of the TNGA-F architecture underpinning the Land Cruiser 300 Series and upcoming 250 Series Prado, or it could ride on a modified IMV architecture like the one used by the current Hilux and Fortuner. It’s interesting to note that if you brighten up the screenshot of the mystery Toyota SUV, it appears to be using the side mirror of the Rangga (aka next-gen Tamaraw), an upcoming IMV model.
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In Land Cruiser Forum, a link from ‘Chizai Watch’ was shared. It looks like the ‘Land Cruiser FJ’ trademark has been filed by Toyota. If this is indeed the name of the production FJ, it will officially be part of the modern Land Cruiser family. For this Land Cruiser rendering, I decided to use the ‘FJ’ suffix instead of ‘Mini.’
Our FJ rendering’s basic shape, daylight opening, five-door configuration, and C-shaped DRLs are all based on the mystery SUV Toyota teased. I filled in the blanks by following the general design language of the all-new 250 Series Prado, but with a more simplified slab-sided narrow body design inspired by the 250 Series Prado design studies. It uses a separate plastic fender construction on all corners to cover the big tires that protrude beyond the body.
As seen in the teaser, the spare tire is mounted on the rear swing-gate. For those wondering, the short rear overhang leaves no room for a full-size spare tire under the cargo floor. For the paint colors of our FJ, I went with an updated metallic version of the classic FJ40’s Dune Beige and paired it with a white roof.
Whichever architecture the production model ends up using, expect it to have an independent double-wishbone front suspension and a multilink rigid-axle setup at the rear. With the role of being a smaller Land Cruiser model, it would most likely stick with four-banger diesel and gasoline engines. In terms of size, our guesstimate is it will be close to the discontinued FJ Cruiser.
What do you think of our Land Cruiser FJ? Would you consider it if Toyota built it? Please let us know in the comments.
