DEAD OR ALIVE?

Is the new 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser the real deal? We venture into the wilds of Utah to find out.

- Dan Edmunds

HANKSVILLE (POPULATION 170 OR SO) IS A tiny crossroads town in south-central Utah that looms large for area visitors. That’s been the case for some time, as it was a lonely supply outpost used by Butch Cassidy and his notorious Wild Bunch in the late 1800s. Cassidy, a local miscreant, established a well-concealed hideout to the east in what is now called Robbers Roost, a steeply walled canyon off the aptly named Dirty Devil River.

Today handfuls of hardy tourists venture to those same impossibly sinuous canyons looking for extreme off-grid adventure, oftentimes involving rappelling but always supported by a four-by-four. Others stock supplies before they head farther east into Canyonlands National Park’s Maze district or south toward the waters of Lake Powell. It’s the perfect place to see what the new Toyota Land Cruiser is all about while also getting a sense of the fearsome topography that Cassidy used to his advantage.

Toyota killed the North American Land Cruiser after the 2021 model year, but for 2024, the company has pulled a Frankenstein and brought it back to life. Land Cruiser purists are not convinced, however, because the apparent death and rebirth of the Cruiser was premeditated all along despite whatever “We heard you, so we’re bringing it back” nonsense the public-relations department spouted. What was really going on was a planned shunning of the new 300-series Land Cruiser (a.k.a. the “real” one) in favor of the 250-series Land Cruiser Prado that lagged two years in arrears. It was a course correction intended to avoid a likely base price north of $90,000 and bring the Cruiser back to earth and into the hands of more buyers.