For manufacturers, having a luxury off-roader in your lineup is more or less mandatory in Japan, and the Landcruiser has done duty as Toyota’s all-purpose mule for years now. Available with either a 185-horse 3.4litre petrol-powered V6, or a 140bhp 3.0litre in-line four Turbodiesel, the Prado offers something for the performance-minded, as well as for the economy-conscious. Last year, while visiting the Tokyo Motorshow, I got to drive the Prado on the Autopolis Circuit, and came away with some impressions of the vehicle...
In the looks department, well, I don’t know. This will certainly be purely a matter of personal opinion, but I do think it could do with being a bit more ‘butch’ looking. For me, the Prado looks just a wee bit too sanitised and toned down for a vehicle that belongs in this category.
Bring on the outrageous colours, wild stickers, flared wheel arches, huge wheels and tyres – the works! This vehicle was built for some serious mud-slinging, so why not make sure it looks the part…?!
But to get down to the driving experience, a circuit like the Autopolis was certainly NOT the ideal setting for a Prado test drive, but of course, I had a go anyway. Driving the car, the first thing was that I found the suspension –
double wishbones at the front, trailing links at the rear, and coil springs at all ends – to be rather soft. Body roll was considerable when pushed hard in corners, but the tall stance means that that was more or less to be expected. Still, at high speeds, the Prado engine did not sound stressed, and handled all the stick I gave it with equanimity, in spite of the fact that high speeds on a closed circuit racetrack is not really the Prado’s thing.
The Prado does have full-time 4WD, though it gave no discernable advantage on the track. Of course, it will likely strut its stuff when you are bogged down in mud and / or snow, so we’ll talk about its 4WD capabilities some other time! The Automatic gearbox was just about satisfactory, though here I must say that it was taking its own time in changing up or down. Again, perhaps a manual would have been better! The (ABS-equipped) brakes were not outstanding, though they did manage to haul down this heavy
vehicle from high speeds, without any drama whatsoever.
Overall, this, the 5-door Prado VX, remains a competent vehicle, even though it shows its age in some departments. There is still loads of space, lots of people can cram in
and still be reasonably comfortable, and the vehicle is powerful enough to do some serious hauling if that is on your agenda. Here, on the racetrack, it did not impress as much as the other cars in the Toyota lineup, but again, it
was simply not in its element at all. If this vehicle comes here, it would have fair chances of being a sales success, because the Prado name already has a lot of street-cred here.
The Landcruiser Prado is, in fact, right up there with the Pajeros and the Landrovers, in the credibility stakes. How it’ll go down with the Merc ML270 set, I don’t really know, but then the Merc would probably be much more expensive, hence cannot really be considered competition. Of course, it has what it takes to simply murder all desi MUVs/SUVs, so let’s not even talk about those…!