Features

Feta, camembert, gorgonzola - whatever your poison, it won't come close to what the marketing departments of car manufacturers can churn out, for they are the world's master cheesemakers.

Among the many brands of whiffy fromage on offer to the car buyer, easily the strongest is Full-Fat Lifestyle Vehicle Blue; and this Toyota is the Oak-Aged Super-Mature Extra Strong variant.

You've seen the shots in brochures: two models - one male, one female - both beautiful in wetsuits and carrying surfboards, standing on the beach near their new car, smiling at a distant horizon with cool shades and dazzling teeth. It's not life, it's Lifestyle: the perfect scene for the perfect couple and their perfect vehicle.

Of course, the models have never been near a surfboard, one of them is gay, the car isn't used by real surfers because it never leaves Hampstead and the shot has been art-directed and doctored by people with square specs and Bauhaus facial hair but no driving licence.

The car had to be towed because it got bogged in the sand and they've paid the local authority a five-figure sum to use that stretch of beach. But hey, what a Lifestyle. Can you smell something?

Anyway, here comes the Toyota FJ Cruiser. It's the first-ever retro-styled Toyota, taking its facial features from the most classic Toyota of all time, the FJ40 Land Cruiser from the 60s to the 80s.

That vehicle was an indestructible wonder that forged Toyota's reputation for both strength and reliability in places where it's really needed - like the Outback, the Veldt, the Sticks and the Boondocks. So it's definitely an icon and one that, some might say, it is a crime to reference with a 'yoof' vehicle riding on a 4Runner chassis.

But could it be that this new FJ Cruiser is cool nevertheless and a worthy tribute to its inspiration? Surely it will be seen as an unimaginitive, cynical, backward-looking marketing ploy by the people who matter - the potential customers.

In this situation, there was only one way to find out. With our minds firmly snapped shut, we decided to take an FJ Cruiser along the Pacific coast to California's surfing hotspot, Ventura, to find out whether the target market was likely to rush out and buy it.

Our first one-man focus group, 56-year-old Curtis Montague, has been surfing for 40 years and has probably been cool for even longer. He drives a 1966 Chevy F10 truck, beaten to hell and all the more charming for it.