In August, 2020, Toyota revealed that it was working on a moon rover that it dubbed the “Lunar Cruiser,” a name that nods to the formidable Land Cruiser. That is because, like the Land Cruiser, the Lunar Cruiser will need to be durable, reliable, and made of the highest quality. The Lunar Cruiser will embody the Land Cruiser’s motto, too: “come back alive.”
Now the moonshot idea has been officially approved by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for a mission to the moon in 2040 and eventually on to Mars.
“We see space as an area for our once-in-a-century transformation. By going to space, we may be able to develop telecommunications and other technology that will prove valuable to human life,” Takao Sato, who heads the Lunar Cruiser project at Toyota Motor Corp., told The Associated Press.
If you think that it’s a stretch to suggest that this Cruiser is designed for space overlanding, think again. Toyota has admitted that, just like in an earth-bound 4×4, this Lunar Cruiser will need to enable people to “eat, work, sleep and communicate with others safely.” If that doesn’t sound like the definition of an overlanding rig, I don’t know what does.
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The only thing that chaps me about this project is that it’s a Cruiser. And that bothers me because Toyota just yanked the Land Cruiser from the U.S. market, as you likely know, replacing it with a more off-road-y Sequoia.
The new Sequoia is cool, don’t get me wrong. But now even the moon gets a Cruiser but we Americans don’t? C’mon, man! That’s just adding insult to injury.
I kid (mostly).
