The Toyota Land Cruiser Is Coming Back To America

Photo: Toyota Global

When Toyota killed off the Land Cruiser in the States, we were crestfallen. Heartbroken. We wondered how we’d retain the will to live in a world without God’s favorite 4×4 available on our shores. For decades, we’d loved the world’s best SUV as a trusted friend, and suddenly — like a blue sky turned cloudy — it was gone.

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But now, Toyota seems to be righting that wrong. After months of rumors, conjecture, and dreaming, the automaker’s U.S. wing made a single Instagram post that fixed its past mistake: The Land Cruiser is, officially, coming back.

Of course, what form the revived Cruiser takes once it reaches our shores is yet to be seen. Rumor after rumor says we won’t be getting the global market 300 series, but instead we’ll end up with a version of the short-wheelbase Land Cruiser Prado. This is big, exciting news to the IH8MUD users who’ve spent their lives lusting over the short-wheelbase Cruiser, but may fall a bit flat for the folks who realize we’ve gotten it as the Lexus GX for decades.

With the reveal of the latest GX, however, we should have expected this. That Lexus looks more like a Toyota than any of its stablemates, meaning designers won’t need to change much for the SUV to show up on the lower-priced showroom floors. While the new U.S. bearer of the Land Cruiser badge might be smaller than its full-sized global counterpart, it’s still larger than even the 100-series of the early aughts. How big cars have grown.

We don’t know much else about the upcoming Land Cruiser, but we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for any updates from Toyota. After its brief absence, the king is finally coming back.