I’m really really digging the new automotive design trends that seem to be taking roots nowadays. Where before we were all ready for a bleak, bloaty, eggy future, designers have convened to give us some edge. And yet one of my favorite designs of this era has just dropped, and it kinda looks like a toy car.
I guess I have to thank Hyunkia for this one. Their design department has been on an absolute roll these past couple of years. Evidently at some point they were given free reign about their designs apart from the brief “Must not look out of place on a 1980’s sci-fi movie” And so we’ve ended up with fantastic designs like the Tucson/Sportage cousins and the IONIQ 5 BEV.
Hell, when even the emerging-markets van can tickle your anesthetic sensibilities, you know that you’re doing something right.
Naturally, other manufacturers have stepped up their designs in a bid to compete. And this time, the rising tide really does lift all boats. We live at a time where the Toyota Prius, of all things, ws beaten with the beauty stick until even auto enthusiasts have to admit that styling is a strong point. Nevermind the fact that it’s also more powerful and faster.
On the other side of the perceived environmental concerns, You have the new line of Toyota trucks. The latest of which to be introduced is the new Land Cruiser. Amusingly, after disappearing from the US market for a couple of years there, Toyota has decided that America is indeed capable of sustaining sales of a Land Cruiser-branded product. Just not one that is quite so close to the one carrying the Lexus LX badge. Instead, the US is getting the car known through most of the world as the Land Cruiser Prado. A smaller, less-expensive model. Though it must be said, no less capable as far as off-roading is concerned.
It must be said that the US already gets the Land Cruiser Prado, albeit with fancier trimmings and a V8 as standard instead of the Diesel that most of them carry. If you don’t want your Prado with a Lexus badge, the 4Runner is based off the same platform. It’s these two that make me question Toyota’s decision. There will be a new 4Runner soon enough and it will be based on the same platform as the new Land Cruiser. Then on the higher end of the market you have the GX. Again, same platform.
So where will the Land Cruiser fit then?
Well, the obvious solution is to move the 4Runner downmarket. Then you have a hierarchy of GX for the people who want a luxuty SUV, 4Runner who don’t want to buy a Bronco/Wrangler, and the LC fitting somewhere in the middle. Me personally, with it’s cutesy design and trim levels, I suspect that it will become the spiritual successor for the FJ Cruiser. A car that didn’t sell quite as well as hoped back when it was new but that still commands a price premium even now. This leaves the 4Runner roughly where it is right now in the pecking order.
Perhaps it would be a good time to try and make it a retrofuturistic interpretation of its original incarnation. After all, it worked quite well that one time Hyundai decided to make a BEV out of a Stellar.
