2018 Toyota Land Cruiser Review

The 2018 Toyota Land Cruiser is a vehicle intended to go literally anywhere. Any terrain, any climate, any country — it can handle it. Warning stickers inside are even printed in English, Japanese, Russian and Arabic, driving the point across that it can be used by any adventurous driver.

Its immense capabilities stem from a stout body-on-frame chassis, full-time four-wheel drive, Toyota's bag of off-road tech tricks and a strong V8 engine. All of this is further backed up by a legendary and hard-earned reputation for reliability based on decades of service in every corner of the world.

So whether you're traversing a glacier in Iceland or oven-baked sand in Death Valley, the Land Cruiser will get the job done. It also does this while cosseting you in a leather-lined, fully loaded cabin that makes this Toyota a fully fledged luxury vehicle.

However, if the only terrain you intend to cross is the local interstate and perhaps a Costco parking lot, the Land Cruiser doesn't make any sense. It gets only 15 mpg in combined city and highway driving, which is terrible even by full-size SUV standards. It's big, heavy and has slow steering, reducing its maneuverability and compromising its on-road handling relative to a large crossover.

Then there's the cabin — the second row is mounted a bit too low for comfort and its otherwise hilarious degree of recline is reduced to almost nil when the third-row seats are folded up against the cargo area walls. And, yes, that means the third row doesn't fold into the floor. It, therefore, still takes up cargo space when not in place, and when it is, it's not as if many humans will be able to comfortably fit back there or easily reach it. "Compromised" would be the word to sum it up best.

But, for a select few, the 2018 Land Cruiser is an absolutely perfect tool for their adventurous lifestyles.