Single cab manual Land Cruiser 79 is Toyota’s icon at its purest

Driving a single cab Land Cruiser 70-series rates as an experience rarer than most supercars. Picture: Charl Bosch Unveiled in January 1951, this year marks the Toyota Land Cruiser’s 75thanniversary as one of the longest-lasting nameplates in the brand’s history. In addition, this year also sees the 70-series add another year to its now 42-year lifespan as the longest produced generation of any Land Cruiser.

While order books Down Under re-opened earlier this year after being closed for over 12 months due to demand outstripping supply, South Africa has been unaffected as the first half of the year netted sales of 2 796 units. What’s more, combined 70-series figures, which include the 76 station wagon, the order-only 78 Troop Carrier or Troopy and 79 single and double cab, haven’t dipped below 400 units – the lowest being 406 in March and the highest, 541 in January. Making this even more remarkable was the belief that the removal of the single-turbo 4.5 D-4D V8 turbodiesel engine would result in sales taking a dive.

With itsend announced two years ago, its replacement, the 2.8 GD-6, has proved the naysayers wrong as, apart from being the first four-cylinder engine ever offered in a South African-spec Land Cruiser, it also came with a market-first automatic gearbox. Not stopping there, though, the end of said year heralded theavailability of the manual gearbox on the GD-6, but only on select versions of the 76 and 79. With the V8 officially no more, a furtherrange update in March this yearfinally brought the manual as an option below the automatic on the double cab.

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It therefore opened the door to sample what is likely to become a vehicle rarer to drive than most supercars: a manual single-cab Land Cruiser 79. While the double cab automatic showed its prowess at Gerotek two years ago with Road Test Editor Mark Jones clocking it faster from 0-100km/h, 60-100km/h and from 80-120km/h that themanual V8 tested the year before, there was to be no against-the-clock testing for the manual single cab.

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