Toyota Land Cruiser Commercial review: a no-nonsense success story

White goods at their most rugged…

Yup. It’s the new Toyota Land Cruiser, already a firm TG favourite, with the back seats removed to morph it into a van. How cute.

And cheap, too. Kinda. Whereas the stock Land Cruiser seven-seater kicks off at £77,845 (yes, really), the van knocks off 26 grand if you can swerve the VAT, priced from £51,729 should you buy it with your business hat on. Making it an expensive van, but a more affordable Land Cruiser.

What precisely have they done?

Binning the back two rows of seats is the first job. Then a full-height, mesh-topped rear bulkhead is fitted in the gaping hole left behind and the rear windows rendered opaque with inner steel panels. While the core, J250 Land Cruiser is built in Japan, its commercial makeover is all implemented by Toyota UK at its Derbyshire factory. The one that will soon be producing GR Corolla hot hatchbacks, we’d like to excitedly add. What a theatre of dreams it promises to be.

We’ve been here before – and loved the results – though you now have the sole choice of a longer, five-door Land Cruiser and thus a proper, 2,000-litre capacity and 810kg payload. Not to mention 3,500kg of braked towing capacity. It’s a rugged, hard-working thing, this.

It's also beaten by a humble Ford Transit Courier on volume alone, but then the Transit’s not nearly as distinctive to look at – all of the current ‘Cruiser’s retro charm is demonstrated just as emphatically here – and it won’t go as far over properly tough terrain. Toyota reckons you’ll buy this because you want something cooler and more polite on-road than a Hilux pick-up, but you probably need at least some off-roading amongst your commercial endeavours to justify the spend.

Not that this Toyota is unique in its proposition: an Ineos Grenadier Commercial also starts at a whisker below £52k, while a Land Rover Defender 110 Hard Top is £63k before VAT. All three of ‘em offer spookily similar load space, ensuring your choice will likely come down to which of their designs and driving experiences you prefer.

So how does the Land Cruiser stack up?

It’s a damn sight better to drive than that Ineos will be, requiring none of the Brit’s recalibration of how to operate a motor vehicle merely to steer out of your driveway and down the street. Nor does it imitate a military submarine with a bunch of bamboozling switches and buttons – it’s much easier to clamber up into the Land Cruiser’s cab, grapple its gratifyingly chunky gear selector into D, and simply get going.

Which you’ll do with moderate haste, depending on your load. Like the launch Land Cruiser car, it drives all four wheels via a 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel and modern eight-speed automatic gearbox. Derived from the Hilux, the engine offers 202bhp and 368lb ft – the latter from 1,600rpm – for a stroll to 62mph in 12 seconds. A loud one, too, your fuel source unmistakable the whole time.

How does it handle?

It drives pretty smartly, the steering reasonably rich in feel and ultimately much quicker and more intuitive than the Grenadier’s. The ride is decent given the hardy, ladder-frame construction beneath and though it won’t negotiate corners like a GR Yaris, it entertains in its own way.

Its lack of airs or graces inside proves especially appealing; there’s leather and touchscreens where you’d like them but pragmatic solutions everywhere else. Are we the only ones utterly beguiled by Toyota Burnaston simply sticking a crude plastic cover over where the rear electric window switches (presumably) still reside? We’re in a commercial vehicle here – and thus a world bereft of nonsense – and much of the Land Cruiser’s attitude fits right in.

Even its drive assists feel sensibly applied, though the incongruity of its Sport mode shouldn’t be ignored. Buyers are surely much more likely to relish its permanent AWD and various off-road helpers.

What about sensible numbers?

Toyota claims fuel economy of 26.6mpg on the WLTP cycle and 278g/km of CO2 emissions, though a mild-hybrid version will follow to eke out a little more efficiency. For now, it comfortably beats the six-cylinder Grenadier but sits someway shy of a Defender Hard Top, the Land Rover four seconds quicker to 62mph (!) while claiming 33.8mpg and 219g/km.

The Defender is a bit spanglier inside, too, but it’s also notably more money. Which matters when you’re running a business. We’d happily spend the day thrashing both of them around a muddy quarry to truly declare a winner, though…

But these are hard-working vans!

Yep, and the Toyota’s crowning achievement is that it has a down-to-earth, tongue-in-cheek charm that ought to brighten up all but the most arduous of haulage jobs. It’s all that we love about the current Land Cruiser, but with even less concern for its refinement imperfections thanks to its significantly shifted use-case. You won’t feel hard done by stepping into one of these from a Vivaro or Sprinter. After the fabulous little GR86 and GR Yaris and the glitzy reborn Prius, we can chalk this up as another Toyota success. Its rich vein of form hasn’t stuttered yet.