Toyota announced Friday that it has sold 10 million units of its iconic Land Cruiser series of SUVs worldwide as of Aug. 31—68 years after the Toyota “Jeep BJ” that launched the nameplate was introduced.

Exports of the Toyota Land Cruiser began in November, 1955, with the introduction of the 20 Series. While initial volumes weren’t particularly impressive (fewer than 100 units annually), within a decade Toyota was moving more than 10,000 to world markets each year. Today, Toyota says it sells roughly 400,000 examples of the Land Cruiser and its derivatives every year across 170 world markets.

The company credits the Land Cruiser with helping establish Toyota’s reputation for building durable, reliable vehicles, creating what it calls a “foothold” for its expansion into different markets, which have since grown to embrace other products in its now-much-larger lineup. In 2018, the largest market for Land Cruiser-family vehicles was the Middle East, which accounted for roughly 33 percent of its worldwide volume at about 132,000 vehicles.

Cc: Marpol

Read more on: https://carzbass.com/2019/09/23/toyota-announces-that-it-has-sold-over-10-million-land-cruiser/

rugged and reliability

Solid, reliably built motor vehicles.

When you buy a Land Cruiser, you're buying a product first of all. Branding and all those other extras are secondary. (Mercedes, Ford, Land Rover, BMW, GM - are you listening?)

Like I always say, there's a reason why mining engineers, oilmen, the UN, combatants in troubled spots etc. have a preference for Land Cruisers and other Toyotas. Toyota gets the job done!

Toyota is probably the only car maker that has had mid-level conflicts named after it (Google the 'Toyota wars') - publicity it would rather do without - but which shows that even warlords recognize the real deal when they see it. Imagine if ISIS, Al Qaida etc. had decided to use Dodge Rams, G Wagens, BMW X5s or Ford Raptors as their vehicles of choice - instead of the 'technicals' they do use. Those long running wars would have long since ended - far more time would have been spent on car repairs instead of combat and everyone would have gone home to rest.

The Land Cruiser and its cousins like the LS 400 have forever destroyed the myth that unreliability is par for the course with high end, 'luxury' automobiles. Toyota has proved, time and time again that it can be done.

The Toyota Way is 'the' way.