Military Land Cruisers

The BJ was built for the National Police Reserve’s 1951 tender and lost it to Mitsubishi; the National Police Agency ordered 289 as patrol cars, the Forestry Agency and the power companies bought it for mountain roads, and production at the Honsha plant with Arakawa bodies ran at a few hundred a year. It was renamed Land Cruiser on 24 June 1954 and the 20 Series replaced it in 1955.

Pakistan received the first exported Land Cruisers in 1954 and Saudi Arabia 23 in 1955; the first two for Venezuela sailed on 21 February 1956 and 795 followed in 1957, most for government and oil-company use; 32 CKD kits went to Latin America in November 1955. Toyota do Brasil began assembly in May 1959. The Land Cruiser reached Australia in July 1959 (B&D Motors; a few for Thiess on the Snowy Mountains scheme) and the United States after the Crown in 1957–58.

The FJ40, FJ45 and BJ40 equipped the armies, gendarmeries and police of Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, assembled at Cumaná (Venezuela, from 1963), Jakarta and Karachi (1970), Nairobi (1977) and Chittagong (1982). The Irish Army bought 77 FJ45s from 1977; the Bandeirante served the Brazilian forces.

The Australian Army bought the 70 Series from the late 1980s and again under Project Overlander (2008–12, 4x4 and 6x6); the gendarmeries, armies and police of Morocco, Kenya, Nigeria, the Gulf states and Iraq run 76, 78 and 79 Series; the United Nations, the African Union and the ICRC field the white 76 and 78; armoured 76, 79, 200 and Prado conversions serve embassies and militaries.

Chad’s forces mounted MILAN missiles and heavy machine guns on Land Cruiser and Hilux pick-ups against Libyan armour in 1987 — the “Toyota War” — and the technical has since been the vehicle of irregular forces from Somalia and Afghanistan to Libya, Syria and the Sahel. Toyota has no part in the conversions and has investigated how vehicles reach such forces.