Toyota’s Land Cruiser is, globally speaking, a big deal. What’s metaphorically not, but actually is bigger? The Mega Cruiser.
At first glance, the Mega Cruiser looks like a Humvee (High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle), and it should be because it was also designed to be used by Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force as a high-mobility infantry transport vehicle. Toyota only made 3,000 for the military between 1996 and 2002, and far fewer — only 150 — of the civilian model (which MSRP’d for $85,000).
The beastly utility vehicle was powered by a 4.1-liter, water-cooled, in-line four-cylinder direct injection 15B-FT turbodiesel engine producing 155 hp and 282 lb-ft of torque. It was mated to a four-speed automatic transmission with a torque converter and sub-transmission with a two-speed transfer case.
The Mega was stacked with features that would get it anywhere, including portal axles, triple locking differentials, a hub reduction drive system where the gears sat between the drive shaft and the axles, a reversed-phase four-wheel steering system and a torque-sensing limited slip differential (LSD).
It held six people and could carry as much as 1,650 pounds of cargo, all with a turning radius of 18.4 feet that was 7 feet shorter than an M1100 series Humvee. If you stand the Mega Cruiser toe-to-toe with the Humvee, some claim the Japanese version is the better vehicle.
One of the civilian models (internally referred to as BXD20) sold for $310,00 in October 2022, while a military truck variant sold in June 2023 for just $36,000.
