A Jeep lookalike became the Land Cruiser after climbing Mount Fuji
In July 1951 a Toyota test driver named Ichiro Taira steered a prototype off-roader to the sixth stage of Mount Fuji, higher than any vehicle had reached. Japan's National Police Agency was so impressed that it ordered 289 of them as patrol cars.
The truck was then called the Toyota Jeep BJ. It grew out of the Korean War, when the American government wanted light military utility vehicles built to Willys specifications and asked Toyota to make them. The January 1951 prototype was bigger than the American Jeep and had a stronger 3.4-litre six-cylinder engine, though it lacked a low-range gearbox. Wartime experience helped: during the Second World War Toyota had built a small cargo truck, the AK10, after the military studied a captured American Jeep, but the BJ shared none of its parts.
The Jeep name did not last. In June 1954, after Willys complained of trademark infringement, technical director Hanji Umehara chose Land Cruiser, wanting something that sounded every bit as dignified as the British Land Rover. Studebaker had used the same name on a car from 1934 to 1954. A more civilised 20 Series followed in 1955, aimed at export buyers.
The Land Cruiser soon travelled. In 1958 Brazil began building the FJ25, the first Toyota made outside Japan, later sold as the Bandeirante, Portuguese for flag carrier, with a Mercedes-Benz diesel from 1962. In 1959 it became the first Japanese vehicle regularly exported to Australia, where early examples worked on the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Australia is still its stronghold: it is the country's best-selling body-on-frame four-wheel drive, and Toyota tests it in the outback.
The family now splits into heavy-duty workhorses, roomy station wagons that anticipated the modern SUV from 1967, the lighter Prado, and a small Land Cruiser FJ unveiled in October 2025. Produced since 1951, it is Toyota's longest-running series, with sales above 10 million by 2019.
Source: Toyota Land Cruiser
