The upcoming mini Toyota Land Cruiser will be a Corolla Cross-sized "Land Hopper?"
Dinesh · Oct 17, 2023 05:55 PM
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The silhouette during the presentation. Photo credit: Best Car Web
The Toyota Land Cruiser made its name being a tough-as-nails, go-anywhere premium 4x4 with the looks to back it up. Hot on the heels of the new global Land Cruiser 300 and the North American Land Cruiser 250 (Prado) could be a new third, more compact variant that’s being adorably dubbed the Land Hopper.
Japanese site Best Car Web has dropped its own rendering of what the Land Hopper could be styled like and unsurprisingly, it appears to be very much like a mini Land Cruiser 250. That’s not a bad thing given that the Land Cruiser 250 is the better looking part of the duo.
The rendering by Best Car Web of the compact Land Hopper.
Speculation about the mini Land Cruiser stems from Toyota’s presentation on the Land Cruiser 250/Land Cruiser 70 held in August 2023, particularly a slide that indicated the model’s future direction.
During the presentation by Toyota's Design Manager Simon Humphries, the current Land Cruiser 300 and Land Cruiser 250 are clear in the foreground’s left and right. However, in the background’s left was clearly the silhouette of a compact SUV.
The side renderings by Best Car Web does share similarities with the FJ Cruiser.
Size-wise, the Land Hopper would be similar in footprint to the Toyota Corolla Cross, likely measuring around 4,490 mm in length, 1,825 mm in width and 1,850 mm in height. Like the rendering, it’ll sport a square body and rugged over fenders. Think of it as a boxier Toyota FJ Cruiser.
Under the hood, expect some variation of the 1.8-litre petrol NA or hybrid powertrain from the Corolla Cross or even the 2.0-litre petrol or 2.5-litre hybrid from the Toyota RAV4. Best Car Web even suggests that the 1.5-litre turbo hybrid setup could find its way into the Land Hopper.
Best Car Web's rendering of the front paints a very imposing facade.
“Better late than never.” Some despise it, others begrudgingly agree with it but he swears by it… much to the chagrin of everyone around him. That unfortunately stems from all of his project cars not running most of the time, which in turn is testament to his questionable decision-making skills in life. A culmination of many wrongs fortunately making a right; much like his project cars on the rare occasions they run, he’s still trying to figure out if another project car is the way to go.
