Toyota's Land Cruiser is the SUV most other 4x4s call "Sir". It's forged a reputation as a true go-anywhere 4x4 in its five decades of production and added luxury in recent years without going all soft and metrosexual.
The latest Land Cruiser range - the 200 series - was launched in South Africa in December 2007, only weeks after its world debut, and has luxury and high-tech coming out of its tailpipes.
Its comfort is fit for a queen and the gadgets cool enough for James Bond but the Land Cruiser remains true to its go-anywhere roots, which is why the 200 is still built on a tough ladder-frame chassis and has the same generous ground clearance and approach/departure angles as the previous 100.
However, it adds a host of improvements: a larger and stronger body, more space, improved safety, more power and revised suspension. There's also a raft of electronic gadgets to make life easier off-road: "active" suspension, gradient descent control, all-terrain anti-lock brakes and gradient start assistance.
We took the Land Cruiser 200 to Mozambique during the December holiday to see if it was still the Master of Africa, as Toyota calls it, and visited places well off the beaten path.
Our Land Cruiser had the all-new 4.5-litre turbodiesel but if you prefer your fuel a slightly lighter (and less economical) hue an upgraded version of the old 4.7-litre petrol V8, now rated at 202kW and 410Nm, is available.
The 2.6-ton diesel version was a burly cruiser on the long road from Jozi to the Komatipoort border post with its 173kW and 615Nm, gulping distance and taking scant notice of hills even with a trailer (it has a 3500kg towing capacity, more than sufficient for the yacht and horse box).
It's a muscular cruiser at any altitude but up in Joburg's thin air there's some initial turbo lag which puts a damper on quick pull-offs; the turbodiesel prefers oxygen rich, sea-level air in which its response is brisk and instant.
A diesel it may be but abandon hope all ye who expect a fuel fairy; our test truck gobbled between 13.8 (cruising) and 17 (off-roading) litres of fuel every 100km so your monthly fuel bill will not be a pretty sight.
It's a notably quiet diesel engine, however, as attested to by pedestrians in car parks who were unaware of this big hulk lurking behind them until we blasted the horn.
Space, as they said in "Star Trek", is the final frontier, and the Land Cruiser has lots of it. It took four people and two weeks' holiday cargo to challenge the cavernous cabin and boot, although a cargo cover to hide the luggage was a curious omission.
James Bond features
Three rows of seats take for up to seven passengers with vast leg- and head-room for each, including two rear seats which fold up against the sides to liberate more boot space. The front two seats are electrically adjustable while the second row can also be adjusted for backrest angle and legroom.
Some of the James Bond features include a smart entry and starting system that leaves the key in your pocket; the car senses its presence and you unlock the doors simply by tugging on a handle and start it by pressing a button on the dash.
A reversing camera projects the rear view on to a screen and beeps when you get too close to an obstacle.
Finding our way to our remote Mozambique destinations owed no thanks to the Toyota's satnav system which is woefully inadequate; Mozambique's not mapped on it and neither are several major South African roads and towns.
We'd have been righteously lost without the portable TomTom device we took along. It even listed some dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere.
Ride - the best attribute
The only thing we liked about Toyota's satnav was its trail of digital "breadcrumbs" so, like Hansel and Gretel we were able to retrace our tracks back to civilisation.
Ride quality is the Cruiser's best attribute. It has a way of flattening bumps that turned Mozambique's worst back roads into highways - partly thanks to a new technology called kinetic dynamic suspension system which improves on-road handling by suppressing body roll by automatically stiffening or softening the front and rear stabiliser bars while allowing good wheel articulation off-road.
Expecting such a tank to handle like a sports car, however, is like asking an elephant to ice-skate; there's still plenty of body roll and you wouldn't feel confident throwing a Land Cruiser through a twisty mountain pass - but it would feel even spongier without KDSS.
Nevertheless, ride quality is excellent; so is its off-road ability; it's able to go just about anywhere without having to call for a winch.
It has a button for everything - differential lock, low range, downhill braking, you name it - but mostly these weren't called for on our trip as the permanent four-wheel drive and muscular low-down torque were enough to deal with most off-road situations.
Much of our driving was in deeply rutted dirt roads and soft sand, and all it took was a bit of extra momentum to climb the steeper bits.
Ride height is generous and there was no belly scraping, but the running boards tended to snag and we damaged one. The Land Cruiser's size is also a disadvantage on narrow bush trails and my teeth gritted every time I heard twigs squealing against the paintwork of nearly 800 grand's worth of SUV.
VERDICT
Still the Master of Africa? Yessir. The key word here is mega, as applied to size, comfort, power and, unfortunately, price and fuel consumption.
The Land Cruiser is no pavement ornament; it's for adventure seekers who intend to get the tyres (and perhaps the windows and roof!) muddy. Its sheer size can be a handful though, as the scratches on its sides attest. - Star Motoring