2012 Toyota Land Cruiser V8

The new Land Cruiser V8 is one of the best SUVs that you'll be able to buy this year. It combines superb quality, performance, luxury and unmissable road presence. The 2012 Land Cruiser V8 is expected to hit the UK market later this year.

Outside, it boasts a new front bumper with integrated fog lights and a new grille that pairs chrome and silver-finished vertical bars across its width. The headlamps are also different and now incorporate LED daytime running lights and cylindrical high and low beam High Intensity Discharge bi-xenon headlights. The turn indicators extend outwards, increasing their visibility to the side.

As with the daytime running lights and door mirror turn indicators, power-saving LEDs are used for the rear lights, which have the added benefit of lighting up more quickly than conventional filament bulbs. Inside, the mighty Land Cruiser has lighter interior colour scheme, matched with high-gloss wood grain trim elements and bright silver-finish details. The driver's instrument binnacle has white Optitron dials that are backlit with blue illumination and a large, colour TFT multi-information display.

The front seats, upholstered in perforated leather, gain a cool air function in addition to built-in heaters, plus a position memory setting. Active headrests are also introduced to help prevent whiplash injury in a rear-end collision. In the rear the 40:20:40 seats have a new manual sliding mechanism allowing each section to be moved through a 90mm range. The outer seat headrests have been made larger for extra support and comfort, and the centre seat can be folded forward to create an armrest.

The engine range includes a new 4.5 liter V8 turbodiesel (EURO 5) with a diesel particulate filter (DPF) and new G3 piezo injectors in the common rail injection system. The result is 286PS (200 kW) at 3600RPM and 650Nm (480 lb-ft) at just 1600RPM.

The raft of new handling features includes the world-first Turn Assist, which works in conjunction with Land Cruiser V8's Crawl Control function, plus Multi-terrain Select (MTS), Multi-terrain Monitor and Tyre Angle Display.

Land Cruiser V8 will adopt Toyota Touch Pro, the most sophisticated version of Toyota's new multimedia and navigation system. It features 8" touch-screen display showing the most relevant navigation, audio and air conditioning information Toyota Touch Pro uses a high-resolution, eight-inch touch screen interface with a home screen display showing the most relevant navigation, audio and air conditioning information.

Toyota Touch Pro can be combined with a 14-speaker JBL premium sound system with GreenEdge energy efficiency technology that reduces power usage by up to 80 per cent compared to conventional audio units.

UK specifications are still to be announced, but the list of items newly available for the model include a heated steering wheel, front seats with cooling and heating functions, a cooled box in the centre console, a powered upper tailgate section, bi-xenon headlamps and a 200V power outlet in the luggage compartment.

Toyota Land Cruiser V8 (2012)

Source: Toyota