Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series V8 as good as dead

Order books for the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series V8 are likely to remain closed for good.

That’s the latest indication from Toyota Australia, which today confirmed existing orders were continuing to be filled but said the resumption of orders would not take place in the foreseeable future.

“At this stage… I have no clear vision of that order bank opening again any time soon,” said Toyota Australia sales, marketing and franchise operations vice-president Sean Hanley in a press briefing on June 5.

“We’ve still got a way to go to clear what we’ve got, so I don’t foresee that order bank for V8 LandCruiser 70 opening any time soon.

“I don’t have any insight on re-opening that order bank – I don’t see it [happening] in the foreseeable future.”

Hanley didn’t give any indication about when the mammoth backlog of LC70 V8 orders would be filled but he indicated they would be eventually, and added that sales of the four-cylinder 70 Series were going strong and increasing by the day.

Toyota executives have been reluctant to forecast a potential reopening of V8 orders since the sales pause was announced two years ago, when delivery wait times extended beyond two years, and this is their third non-committal comment on the matter in five months.

So it’s looking increasingly likely the 70 Series V8 order book will never reopen after they were shut in mid-2022, which is no real surprise given the 4.5-litre 1VD-FTV turbo-diesel will reportedly be axed from production in the third quarter of next year.

Word out of South Africa last year was that the V8 manual powertrain would be pulled from the 76 Series wagon in August 2024 and then from the 79 Series pick-ups 12 months later, which would explain the reveal of the (slightly) cheaper, more economical and more convenient 2.8-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel automatic version of the facelifted 70 Series in August 2023.

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