Land Rover v Land Cruiser
Land Rover or Land Cruiser In UK Col is a big fan of Land Rovers, so what does he think of the Land Cruiser? If Land Rover sell you a dream in the UK, the Land Cruiser has made it a reality here in Africa. At the time of writing this we have done over 8000km and it has not missed a beat, broken, baulked at any terrain we’ve thrown at it or even so much as coughed. Nothing has fallen off, nothing has stopped working. Trauma of traumas we had to refill the windscreen wash bottle after 6 weeks!! That’s it. 8 Weeks in, we’ve got used to it just working and would be extremely surprised if it didn’t keep doing exactly the same for the last 3 weeks. We’ve just come to expect it now. It really is industrial strength, yet the cabin is reasonably quiet, the seats comfortable and the driving position good. The two 90 litre diesel tanks are said to give 800km range, but we recon that is nearer 1000km cruising on tarmac. Its simple. They boast it has no computer. It has two buttons. One switches fuel tanks when you get low, the other engages the Diff Locks. That’s it! Fourteen years ago in Namibia everything was Land Rover Defender, today virtually none. Everything is Toyota. Every type of Toyota 4x4 and even most of the saloons and hatchbacks are Toyota too. Every town has a Toyota garage! Such Land Rovers that we have seen and its probably 1 in 1000 vehicles, is generally in town, not out in the tough stuff. We’ve seen a few Discoveries and maybe one of each vintage of Range Rover. The Defender looks very dated now. Toyotas look modern. You can’t help thinking that misplaced English nostalgia has held Land Rover back from competing and they have basically surrendered Africa to Japan. Let’s hope the new Defender is built to compete. Strange though, in Mongue, Zambia there were two groups of half a dozen really old Land Rovers parked beside the road. They were well beaten up and in VW Camper terms would be called “distressed”. They looked great and would probably fetch a fortune back in UK. We were unsure if they worked or drove, but strangely they had several people sitting in them. Not really sure what that was all about! Would our Range Rover have survived? We’ll never know but we suspect not. We think it would have negotiated everything the Land Cruiser has mastered, but can’t help thinking something would have broken. And that really is the point, we would have spent the while time waiting for something to go – it is 30 years old after all, whereas with the Toyota we are just expecting it to keep going right to the end. Only here weeks to go at the time of writing.