But aside of the jokes about its styling, here's a real rant about the FJ Cruiser.
I bought one of these when they first came out, it was SN 24XX of the first few that made it to American shores.
What Toyota envisioned: a "reborn" Land Cruiser, they even prattled on about it with their FJ Cruiser magazines with the pictures and hasty summaries of LC's family history some intern up in California cribbed from the net and left out a bunch of trucks that shared essential DNA with the LC family.
What happened: a disaster of a Prado-derived vehicle that was 100% style over substance... let's take it down one by one
Windshield: flat, wide, far from the driver, 3 wipers, prone to cracking, poor gunturret visibility, can't be replaced by your average PPG tech
Body: bloated "homage" to the 40 series. What it really is is a swath of plastic paneling, plastic cladding, weird round and hard angles, dumb bumper winglets, bulging signal lights that catch trees on the trails, idiotic marker lights on the mirrors, and super heavy swingaway rear hatch. The back seats are useless and getting in is impossible because the front doors are so long and back ones are so short. There's room for kids in the back, adults will find more room than a Taco, less than a 4Runner, and will sit in pitch blackness from the tiny porthole windows. How can a truck as large as the FJC have so little space in the back? Cargo area is the same, plastic intrudes upon both sides and chokes useful room.
Visibility: can't see out the front, tall waistline means you can't see out the side, huge C and D pillars choke off view in the back (made worse by tiny windows), slitlike back glass is blocked by huge spare. People wheel these all the time, yet they're 4x4s where YOU CAN'T SEE OUTSIDE THE VEHICLE. It's idiotic. My 60 series was a glass greenhouse, so is my 80. The 40 series was a frickin Jeep.
Toyota quality: it's built by Hino trucks, so it's cheaply put together from leftover Tacoma and Prado parts with tons of plastic thrown in. Out of the 6 plus Yotas I've owned, the FJC was the worst put together, sadly my Trail Edition is the second... Early FJCs have had issues with the front fenders cracking under extra weight of ARB bumpers and off-roading. All 6MTs have had issues with grenading T/O bearings--a problem Toyota didn't fix with their Tacomas and wasn't about to bother with the FJC. The paint was paper thin and really didn't hold up to trail abuse. Ditto for the interior.
Drivetrain: it's light and the 4.0L is fast enough, but detuned compared to the 4Runner. Toyota feels you need a cheaper engine with a cheaper truck.
4x4 performance: throw a lift on it, put on some big tires and fancy bumpers and it will wheel like anything else similar out there. FJC owners seem to think it's in a class of its own and get very butthurt when it's compared to its natural competitor the Wrangler (which is a much more fun and capable vehicle in Rubi form, albeit less well put-together). In reality the many driver aids available on the more upmarket versions of the FJC were picked clean and given to the TE 4Runner--putting all the advantages of the FJC into a more practical vehicle.
So what's the deal: The FJC is cheap. Very cheap. I got mine for about 25k back when they first came out in 07. Prices have swelled a bit, but you can get an SUV Toyota that will wander off road and survive reasonably well for the price of a stripper Xterra or 2-Door Wrangler. Toyota has made all the FJC's utility available in the TE 4Runner, but no matter how you cut it, that truck is close to 40 grand. Frankly, I don't see the value in the Trail Edition to make it cost that much, and I can see the brutal cheapness in the FJ Cruiser. Toyota will have a gap in their product line when they kill this truck and the question is whether they will fill it with an entry level enthusiast off-roader SUV or feel that the Trail Edition and Tacos will overlap enough for the American market who has started to lose interest in this segment.
:moping:
