Land Cruiser still tough at 60

The 80 Series of the late eighties continued to walk in the comfortable-but-tough path of the 60 Series as the Land Cruiser flagship.

The 80 Series of the late eighties continued to walk in the comfortable-but-tough path of the 60 Series as the Land Cruiser flagship.

The original Prado of 1996 was the second light-duty-series Land Cruiser, aimed at those seeking the off-road potential of a traditional Cruiser but without the bulk.

The Land Cruiser 100 is the direct predecessor of the 200 that we have today and it replaced the Land Cruiser 80 during the late 1990s.

The first Land Cruiser station wagon, the 50 Series, is the forerunner of the current Land Cruiser 200 V8 and it catered mainly for the American market where there was a call for more refined 4WD vehicles.

The ancestry of Land Cruiser can be traced back to the Toyota BJ of 1951, a truck-derived model that was initially developed for military use. In 1954 the new Type 25 BJ was given a generic model name, Land Cruiser, which has been used ever since.

The Land Cruiser 40 series is the predecessor of the 70 series we still know today. It ran from 1960 to 1984.

Current Land Cruiser 200 wagon is the biggest, most sophisticated and bulkiest of them all.

The latest Land Cruiser Prado, launched in 2009.

The Land Cruiser 70 Series was first introduced in the 1980s and the bakkie version seen here has been something of an institution in South Africa. A facelifted verison of this is currently sold here as the Land Cruiser 79.

The Land Cruiser 60 Series of the 1980s was designed to be a more luxurious offering than the previous 50 series, but without compromising off-road ability.